


Get a Dictionary!

by madame_alexandra



Category: NCIS
Genre: Antagonism, F/M, Flirting, Gen, Humor, Words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-23
Updated: 2015-08-28
Packaged: 2018-03-14 16:24:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 28,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3417491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madame_alexandra/pseuds/madame_alexandra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leroy Jethro Gibbs learns 26 different words at the hands of his former partner -- and current boss. JIBBS. Based on the 'semantics/get a dictionary!' scene in season 3 NCIS ("Probie").</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: remember "Idioms" ? because the concept of this story is kind of the same, except not Ziva-ism centric! it's based on a favorite Gibbs scene in which Jenny says "Get a dictionary!" in an annoyed response to Gibbs' stubborn refusal to acknowledge that he probably knows exactly what she's talking about. each chapter is a different word!

****

A: Affiance _(verb; infinitive form) : to engage to be married ; **syn:** betroth, engage_  


The Director of NCIS had been in a touchy mood all day, and since he was about one hundred percent sure it wasn't his fault, Leroy Jethro Gibbs was determined to find out why – after all, the worst thing that could happen was that he was one hundred percent wrong and it _was_ actually somehow all his fault.

He doubted that would happen, though; yesterday her last words to him had been tired praise for not going ballistic during a news interview, and unless he'd called her and said something offensive in his sleep, he hadn't done anything to incite her wrath since then.

He tried subtlety first – he preferred not to barge into her affairs too obviously, because he had at least some class – but when that failed, he resorted to blatant investigation, beginning with asking Ziva – which didn't go well –

"I do not know, Gibbs," she said sternly, giving him a look. "I would not tell you if I did."

"So you do know."

"I did not say anything."

"That's somethin', Ziva!"

She had taken her bag, giving him a wry look, and left the office, shaking her head. That left Gibbs alone in the bullpen, glaring warily at the spot where Ziva had been standing, and Jenny up in her office, brooding over something, no doubt, and working late.

He assumed she was brooding because she'd seemed brood-y all day, and he assumed she was working late because her catwalk office with its big ominous window and dark lighting was an optimal place to brood, especially if you were a busy, workaholic – he should know.

He strolled upstairs and walked into the outer office, immediately looking for Cynthia – but the assistant had already gone home; her desk was neatly cleaned off and siting empty in front of a large bookshelf.

Gibbs took that as permission to barge right in to his former Probie's office.

"Jethro," she hissed immediately.

He'd expected her to be at her desk, and when the hiss originated from somewhere else, he was momentarily disoriented. He blinked, and took a few steps in, finally spotting her over by the conference table.

She was leaning against it, television remote in her hand. He guessed she'd been watching the news, but at the moment she was giving him a baleful glare over her shoulder.

"Ziva says there's somethin' wrong with you," Gibbs announced boldly.

The Director stiffly turned off her television and turned to face him, arching her eyebrow as she crossed her arms.

"I doubt that," she said wryly.

Gibbs grinned.

"She wouldn't say," he corrected. "But she said she wouldn't say, instead of sayin' you were fine," he added smugly.

"And you thought that meant she was hinting you should barrel in here and demand to know why I've been so touchy all day," Jenny guessed dryly.

"Yeah."

She glared at him – he didn't even flinch when she revealed it had gotten back to her that he'd called her touchy. He smirked at her and prowled over to her desk, taking an obstinate seat in her chair. She sat on the edge of the table, watching him – she _was_ in a touchy mood, and sometimes, she kind of liked having someone to take that out on, so she let him stay and provoke her.

"Needs a cup holder," Gibbs drawled, tapping the arms of her leather chair flippantly.

She smiled a little, and he sat forward, grabbing her glasses and examining them.

"Some senator piss you off?" he asked, blowing on the lenses as if to clean them.

He set them aside and reached out, picking up a stiff, elegant looking cream-coloured card with a lace fringe.

"Who's gettin' married?" he snorted.

He looked up, and caught her giving the thing a distasteful look – and his eyebrows went up; really? She was touchy because of - because someone was getting married?

She caught his eye, and smiled grimly.

"My high school sweetheart," she revealed.

Gibbs squinted and read the names – he wasn't surprised he'd never heard of the bride or the groom. He checked the venue and date – four months from now, somewhere in New York. He shrugged, and put the invitation down.

"You pissed you're not in the wedding or something?"

"I don't have time to be in a wedding," Jenny scoffed.

Gibbs arched a brow at her, and made a skeptical noise.

"Then what's makin' you touchy?"

She tilted her head.

"The bride was my high school best friend," she said coolly.

Gibbs shrugged.

"Ah, Jen," he said. "You don't care about that."

He knew her well enough to know that after this long, there was no way she expected people she'd known in high school to adhere to some sort of youthful romance rulebook.

It was her turn to shrug.

She crossed her ankles and watched him for a moment, chewing on the inside of her lip.

"It's not so much the invitation as the note that came with it."

Gibbs picked the card back up. He looked around, then spied the envelope and opened it, taking out a small piece of cardstock that requested her R.S.V.P. along with a small folded piece of paper.

It said –

- _Jenna! Can you believe it? I'm finally walking down the aisle! With any luck, you'll be next! Xo – Bethany._

Gibbs arched his brows.

"Jenna?" he quoted.

She waved her hand.

"That's what I went by," she muttered.

He read the note again, and then put it aside, sitting back. He folded his hands and put them behind his head, elbows sticking out.

"So what, Jenny?" he asked bluntly.

She looked frustrated. She licked her lips, and held out her hand.

"That comment – as if I'm wasting away because I'm not married; as if that's what I'm waiting around for," she said, her eyes a little hard. "She knows what I do for a living. She made that comment to put herself above me."

"You're jealous?" Gibbs asked, studying her. "Never thought you cared about gettin' married."

She gave him a sharp look – she understood he was referencing her treatment of him, her mocking of his marriages, and she gave him a short, sharp little smile.

"You ever think I just didn't want to marry you?" she asked smoothly.

He gave her a look, and tilted his head dashingly, silently answering. She bit her lip, rolling her eyes at him.

"It's irritating, that we still live in that kind of world – I can be this successful, but I must not be happy, because I don't have a husband," she griped, gritting her teeth. "I don't have to be unhappy."

"Are you unhappy?" Gibbs asked.

She met his eyes. She stood there, looking at him, and then she pushed off the table and walked forward. She came to her desk and plucked the invitation and note away from him, tucking them into an envelope.

"No," she said, focused on the envelope. "I just don't see why it has to be the norm for everyone to affiance themselves – God forbid some people just be single – "

Gibbs gave her a look.

"Affiance?" he grunted.

She turned her head and gave him a sly smile, her eyes sparkling.

"I'm surprised a man with so many marriages under his belt doesn't know what affiance means."

"There it is; been waitin' for that."

"What?"

"The joke about my wives," he said dully.

She smirked.

"Affiance means to get engaged – "

"Why the hell don't you just say fiancé, Jen?"

She snorted.

"Because fiancé is a noun, and affiance is a verb," she retorted. "Let me finish – it means to engage; like betroth."

Gibbs sat back, giving her a skeptical look.

"Do you know what betroth means?" she asked sweetly.

He considered her a moment, his expression unreadable. He raised one shoulder and cracked a small smile, narrowing his eyes impishly.

"I know what propose means," he drawled.

She laughed, leaning forward on the desk and tilting her head up at him – she was absolutely sure that was a word she didn't have to teach him.


	2. B

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: i found out from my research of "obscure" words that basically, you literally can add anything to "ocracy" to describe a government.

  
**B: Barbarocracy** _(noun) : a government by barbarians; barbarian rule_  


Jennifer Shepard groaned as she read over the latest budget breakdown. She slammed a file shut and pulled the next one towards her, gritting her teeth – she had run this agency so well for the past year; she had come in almost perfectly at budget, so of course instead of rewarding her with a bonus that would maybe let her buy the agents some rounds for the range, they were cutting ammunition allowances and docking bonus pay.

They seemed to be congratulating her for being both frugal and efficient and challenging her to make do with less – never mind that she'd all but promised she'd be able to use some political clout to get better funding for the Major Crimes Response Team. Political clout – Jenny snorted. Maybe this whole time she should have been using her feminine clout to get what she wanted; everyone thought that's how she got here anyway.

She sat back, shaking her head. She closed all the files and started putting them away into her briefcase – she'd take them home; at home, she could go through them and drink while she did it without worrying about any accusations of inappropriate behavior in the office. She found she was subject to a lot more scrutiny there – since she was a woman.

She took up her things and left her office, pausing a moment to lock the door. She pulled her key from the lock and turned around only to find herself almost nose to nose with Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

She gasped and took a step back, crashing into her door. She glared at him, straightening up hastily and brushing out wrinkles in her suit.

"Agent Gibbs," she snapped. "What the hell are you doing?"

His only reaction was to lift the corners of his mouth a little in a smirk. He stood there for a moment, gloating over how he'd startled here, and then cleared his throat and stepped back.

"Ducking out early, Director?" he asked slowly.

She flipped her wrist over.

"It's seven," she said testily. "What can I do for you?"

"That's a loaded question."

"Jethro, I am not in the mood for innuendo."

He grinned at her.

"I can be specific."

She gave him a funny look and almost laughed. He seemed to sense she was annoyed, and instead of pestering her, he was showing her some of that old charm she had fallen for. She rolled her eyes a little and folded her arm over her briefcase.

"I'm going home, Jethro," she told him, sighing.

He followed her as she headed towards the elevator.

"Want a ride?"

"I have a driver."

Gibbs shrugged, on her heels as he followed her in. He watched her as she pressed the button for the garage; then he pressed the button for the lab. Her gaze lingered on that glowing light, and she glanced at him.

"What case is keeping you?"

He gave her a mysterious look.

"Need the overtime," he quipped.

She gave him a murderous look.

He flashed a smirk.

"Cynthia said the budget came in," he drawled. "She told me not to get uppity with you."

"Uppity?"

"Yeah."

Jenny laughed. She leaned against the elevator and sighed, biting her lip. She shrugged.

"I can't do anything right," she confessed. "They tell me to be fiscally responsible, I prove that I am, and they take more money away."

"Yeah, Jen," Gibbs snorted. "That's why all the other agencies get the drop on us?"

She arched a brow at him.

"You think?"

"Yeah, they get a huge budge, and then they spend a bunch of money on crap they don't need to make sure they keep getting' more, claimin' the need it."

"I'm sorry," Jenny said, glaring at him, "When did you get a degree in the economics of federal agencies?"

"Since McGee's been bitchin' about how his FBI buddies all got company iPhones," Gibbs retorted.

Jenny gave him a sour look.

"You can tell Agent McGee that if I can work with a Blackberry, _he_ can work with a Blackberry."

"You tell 'im," Gibbs said. 

Jenny grit her teeth. She waited for him to get off when they reached the lab floor, but he stepped up and leaned against the door, giving her a look. 

"Hey," he said pointedly. "You use the money right, Jen. You still look better than everyone else." 

"I have to cut Cynthia's pay," she hissed. 

Gibbs shrugged. 

"Dock my overtime; give it to her." 

Jenny blinked, taken aback. She shook her head. 

"That's against the law; you can't work without pay." 

"Everyone works without pay," he snorted. "They just don't know it." 

"It's frustrating," Jenny lashed out. "I don't want to come out as a fiscal conservative but working for these buffoons gives me a different perspective on overspending – maybe if we weren't devoting so much funding to propping up some Middle Eastern dictatorial barbarocracy I could afford to give my female agents paid maternity leave – " 

"Jen," Gibbs interrupted. "What the hell's a," he paused, and arched his eyebrows. 

"Barbarocracy," she growled. "It's – a government by barbarians – Iran, Iraq, Egypt – we pay them to slaughter their people – " 

"I think we quit doin' that," Gibbs quipped. "Thought I heard somethin' about revolutions." He tilted his head. "You made that word up." 

"No, I didn't," she snapped. "-ocracy is a suffix that can have a lot of prefixes." She gave him a look. "You can't accuse me of making words up just because you don't know them." 

"Heard democracy, theocracy...never heard that one before." 

"Well, I'm sorry that the powers that be don't personally call you to check before they define something." 

He looked at her a moment, and then grinned. 

"At least you live here," he drawled. "Them not givin' you money for weapons is better then them killin' you with your own guns, huh?" 

"First you're an economics major, now you're Confucius," she snapped, glaring at him – his charm suddenly seem so charming anymore. "Get off my elevator." 

He stepped aside, smirking at her as the doors started to close. Jenny shot him a hard look. 

"Gibbs," chirped Abby from behind him. "Didn't anyone tell you not to bother her today?" 

Gibbs turned, and shrugged. 

"She likes it when I bother her." 

Abby winked at him. 

_"Famous last words, _El Jefe ___."_

__He smirked, following her into the lab. He wondered if there was a word that described a job where you had to take orders from your ex-girlfriend._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's no specific word for that, but female rule is "matriarchy" or "gynocracy" :D
> 
> -alexandra


	3. C

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: you know, the struggle here is finding words that aren't so weird that literally no one uses them anymore, but also words that are difficult enough that it's believable Gibbs wouldn't necessarily know them -

**C: Canard ******_(noun): an unfounded rumor or story; groundless belief;_ **syn.** _tale, story_

When he heard clicking on the linoleum laundry room floor, Leroy Jethro Gibbs turned and gave the basement staircase a brooding, annoyed look. He shoved a glossy, colourful magazine back into the depths of his toolbox and reached for a mug to pour some bourbon in.

"You seem to be making progress," she remarked, prowling around the edge of his boat. She wasted no time making her presence impossible to ignore. "Did you and Fornell agree on a way to split the case?"

Gibbs grunted, shrugged, and turned around and raised his mug to his lips. She arched an eyebrow, coming to a stop opposite him. She folded her arms; a warm, woolen coat draped over her wrists, and she stared at him expectantly. He shrugged again, and she sighed.

"When are you going to learn to play nice with others?"

"When others stop sleepin' with my exes."

She stared at him, taken aback by the unexpected retort. She pursed her lips and laughed dryly.

"I know you're not holding a grudge over that piece of work."

Gibbs shrugged obstinately again. Jenny sighed dramatically and walked forward. She leaned on the counter next to him and turned her head, trying a new approach: she shot him a sweet look through her lashes.

"Jethro, I really don't want to whip mine out for the FBI – can you just work things out with Fornell for jurisdiction?"

"Afraid you'll lose a measuring contest?" he snorted pointedly.

She glared at him.

He glared right back, smirked at her simpering.

"Save the flirting for the media," he advised.

Her brow furrowed. The way he said media seemed unusually sarcastic. She rolled her eyes, refusing to press him, and reached forward for a mason jar to pour herself some whiskey – since he wasn't going to offer. Something glossy caught her eye, and she changed gears, taking the magazine out of the toolbox.

She laughed, more startled than anything else.

_"D.C. Gossip?"_ she read aloud, flipping through the magazine. She gave him a raised-eyebrow look, her eyes mocking. "What exactly is it about this little gem that stokes your interest – the _Top Ten Salacious Senators_ ," she read off the front, "or – ooh, page seven claims to have access to that D.C. Madame's black book…" Jenny trailed off, suddenly noticing a note stuck to the index page.

_Page nine._

It wasn't Gibbs' handwriting. Jenny looked at it curiously.

"Tobias left it on my desk," Gibbs grunted, annoyed that she had found it.

"A likely story," Jenny snorted.

She snatched it away when he tried to grab it, turning. She stood next to him, shoulder-to-shoulder, and flipped to page nine with some amusement.

"What is it, a nude?" she asked lightly.

Her amusement faded, though, the moment she found herself staring at a picture of herself on the famed page nine – it was her, sitting at a café for lunch, out in the open, laughing. The magazine had blown up a photo and circled in red her foot, which was digging into the shin of the man at the table with her.

The words – _D.C.'s first female director; media whore!_ Captioned the photo.

"What the hell is this?" Jenny murmured.

There was another note stuck to the page, in the same handwriting – Fornell's, she assumed – it said:

_Guess your Lady Director found a pretty boy replacement._

Jenny narrowed her eyes sharply, and turned the magazine around, glaring at Gibbs.

"You're reading stupid shit like this and holding it against me?" she demanded.

He looked at the picture and shrugged, touching the magazine with his mug pointedly.

"You look pretty cozy with that guy."

"What's it to you?" she snapped.

"You're always tellin' me to keep us out of the media!" groused Gibbs. "You get to play footsie with 'em?"

"I wasn't - !" she began sharply.

She slammed the magazine shut and held her thumb to mark the page, letting her arms fall stiffly. She shook her head, and took a deep breath.

"I wasn't playing footsie," she said tersely. "I was demonstrating how a stiletto could be a weapon."

"That's what they're callin' it these days?"

"You're cruisin' for a stiletto in the groin, Jethro," she said dangerously. She thrust the magazine into his chest, and it fell to the floor. "You tell Agent Fornell," she began curtly, "that my life is none of his business – or yours."

"Come on, Jen," Gibbs said, gesturing at the magazine. "You got a thing for silver hair?" he asked, teasing her.

That had been the whole reason Fornell thought it was so funny; the guy in the photo had the same silvery-white thing going on that Gibbs did; Tobias seemed to think Jenny was trying to make Gibbs jealous.

"Are you jealous?" Jenny asked, tilting her head. She bent down and picked up the magazine, opening it swiftly. She pointed to the man in the photo, and held it up to Gibbs. "Of _him_?"

"No," Gibbs said stubbornly. He gestured. "That guy's a wimp. I've seen 'im on TV – he's nothin' like me, if that's what you're lookin' for."

She stared at him with disbelief.

"Well," she began, deadpan, "I should think not, since he's gay."

Gibbs stared at her, and she arched her eyebrow.

"He's a friend, Jethro," she sighed, closing the magazine – she felt a little heavy suddenly; it was absurd for Gibbs to act so ridiculous because she might be seeing someone else, but she knew deep down she hated the idea of him flaunting someone, and that only meant that neither of them were really over their past.

Gibbs was still staring at her. He snorted, shaking his head.

"He's not gay – "

"He's not officially out," Jenny hissed, shaking her head. "It's an unspoken thing."

She pushed her hair back.

"Don't call him a wimp," she added protectively.

Gibbs just blinked at her, still a little sheepish. She folded her arms again.

"That's not even a reputable gossip magazine," she said tiredly. "Jesus Christ – you shouldn't go around buying into some stupid canard and taking it out on my like you have some right – "

"What to canaries have to do with this?"

"For the love of God, I said canard, not canaries."

Gibbs linked at her.

"Rumor," she enunciated, rolling her eyes. "Gossip. Bullshit," she defined.

Gibbs shrugged at her, setting his jaw.

"Tobias bought it," he said, a little sullenly.

He took a long sip of bourbon, and then arched his brow at her.

"You tellin' me you're some guy's beard?"

The director gave him a cool look and shifted, swinging on the coat she'd been letting hang from her arm. She started buttoning it, and clicked her tongue at him.

"Figure things out with the FBI before I do it," she ordered.

She marched towards the stairs, heels clicking, and then she paused.

"Jethro," she sighed, turning her head back. She caught his eye. "It would take more than just silver hair," she said vaguely.

It was unspoken that she meant – she couldn't replace him with just looks; and she wasn't trying to.

She started up the stairs again, and started laughing.

"I can't wait to tell DiNozzo you were jealous of Anderson Cooper."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -my beta and i joked about this once. glad i finally found a way to do it.
> 
> -alexandra
> 
> *Anderson Cooper officially came out in 2012.


	4. D

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: oh la la

 

  
**D: Décolletage** _(noun): the top of a woman's dress, blouse, etc. that is cut very low so the top of the woman's breasts can be seen;_ **syn:** _cleavage, bosom_

Leroy Jethro Gibbs had assumed he was the last agent left at work, once it was past midnight. He turned off the lamp at his desk, rubbed his eyes tiredly, and trudged up the stairs to MTAC. He presented his eye for the retina scanner and prowled in – and he was proved wrong, sort of.

Ziva was standing near a chair in the front, nodding her head as she carried on a conversation with the Director. Gibbs had known Jenny was still here; that's why he'd gone up to MTAC, to chase her home. Ziva was technically not an agent – but Gibbs thought she'd gone home hours ago.

The Mossad liaison officer gave him a nod as she stepped away from the Director and head for the door. She smiled a little and left the assessment center; Gibbs took the open seat next to Jenny confidently.

"Having a slumber party, Jen?" he drawled under his breath, looking around at the alert, wide-eyed techs operating the screen.

"I'm out of coffee, Jethro," she sighed quietly.

It was the only warning she needed to give; he fell silent. He watched what was going on, but it didn't look like much.

"You running a mission?" he asked.

"Surveillance," she murmured.

He grunted, looking away from the screens, and looking instead at her. Her face looked a little drawn, thin; she was clearly tired, and yet she was here, watching a whole lot of nothing go down. He wondered if something must have happened that he didn't know about, that was making her feel like she needed to be here, to compensate.

He let his head fall to the side, staring at her.

"You think you're gonna change the world, starin' at some screen?"

"There's a first time for everything."

"Go home, Jen. Get some sleep."

"Take your own advice."

He laughed, shaking his head.

She licked her lips, staring straight ahead.

"Why do you think you know what's best for me?" she demanded.

"Old habits."

She shook her head, a smile touching her lips. She didn't say anything else; he kept staring at her, as if silently willing her to go home. If she got it into her head that he wouldn't leave until she did, she might feel guilty enough to listen. She thought he was being chauvinistic, but he wasn't – he knew her. She made mistakes when she got tired.

"You just come up here to stare at my décolletage?" she asked suddenly, her tone subtle and low.

He arched his brows and shifted his head a little, blinking at her.

"Your what?" he asked shortly.

She lowered her chin and shot him a look, gesturing with her hand. He followed the movement of her fingers and found himself directed to the flowy dip of her cotton shirt. The blouse was cut rather low, and she'd removed her suit jacket; a small, gold necklace accentuated her chest. He understood why she thought that's what he'd been staring at, considering the way his head was tilted - but he hadn't; he'd just been watching _her_.

Gibbs shrugged.

"If you're gonna point 'em out," he began suggestively.

She parted her lips, giving him a quick glare. He looked up at her mildly.

"Wasn't starin' at your whatchamacallit," he drawled. "Got your cleavage burned into my memory," he added abrasively.

She kicked him in the ankle, wrinkling her nose.

"I'm your boss," she admonished.

"Yeah, so memory's all I got," he quipped.

She let out her breath slowly.

"Go get me some coffee, and you can stare some more," she suggested.

He sat forward, and tilted his head. He grinned at her after a moment of consideration.

"Nah," he said. "Go home, Jen," he suggested again, standing up.

She leaned back and looked up at him through her lashes, giving him a prim look.

"Jethro?"

He grunted.

"Cleavage, décolletage – same thing," she informed him sweetly.

He shrugged.

"Whatever you want to call it, Jen," he said, keeping his voice quiet. "I remember."

He turned and strolled out, and she watched him go, her finger resting gently against her temple. She smiled to herself, and looked back to the screen – at least it seemed she'd once made as much of an impression on him as he once had on her.


	5. E

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: i pictured the dress from Atonement, but a different green (obviously, eau-de-nil!)

  
**E: Eau-de-nil** _(noun/adjective): a pale, greenish colour ___  


Leroy Jethro Gibbs kicked a chunk of icy snow off the porch of her elegant brownstone, and raised his hand to knock on the door. Before he could do so, it swung open. She was standing there with her hair done perfectly, styled to the nines, her face made-up beautifully – and a short, faded old cotton robe on. She shivered, hiding herself behind the heavy door a little, and beckoning.

"It's freezing," she murmured insistently. "Get in here."

He strolled in, taking the door from her and closing it lightly, his eyes fixed on her state of disarray – well, half disarray. A quick glance told him she had sheer stockings on, too, and she probably wasn't naked under that robe.

"You call me for a slumber party?" he joked. He held out his hands, and wiggled his fingers stiffly. "Gonna paint my nails?"

She gave him a short grin, and shook her head.

"I need your opinion," she muttered sheepishly.

She stepped back, taking a few steps onto her stairs, and chewed on her lip – as if she was having second thoughts, imagining this was actually a bad idea. She turned on her heel and started up the stairs.

"Work opinion?" he asked, raising is voice as he watched her.

"No," she answered simply. She stopped at the landing, and glanced at him. "Up here, Jethro."

He arched his brows, and then he followed her. She disappeared into the master bedroom and he ran his hand over the lacquered wooden banister, following at a leisurely pace. He traced her steps and walked in after her in time to see her drop her cotton robe and step into her walk in closet.

He cleared his throat, leaning against the door.

"Jen," he grunted warily, looking around her room. "I know we said we were friends," he drawled, a little skeptical of that last word, "but I'm still a guy."

He knew some women had relationships with their male friends that were almost exactly the same as relationships with their female friends, but he hoped Jenny wasn't stupid enough to think that some cordial words had erased everything he used to feel for her.

He didn't mind a friendly camaraderie; he did mind her stripping in front of him.

"I'm glad to hear that," she said smoothly. Her voice sounded muffled, but it got clearer as she came out of the closer. "I'd be startled if you'd had a sex change," she said lightly.

He arched his eyebrows, and she was standing there in a floor-length cream gown that hugged her tightly right until it flared it in glossy folds at the hip. She breathed out slowly and put her hands on her hips, fingers twitching nervously.

He stood there, staring at her, taken aback – he hadn't known why she'd called and asked him if he could come over; he'd assumed it had something to do with a case. He hadn't at all expected her to – well; he didn't really know what the hell she was doing.

He cleared his throat.

"You want me to give you away?" he guessed, his tone a little sarcastic.

She gave him a look.

"I need a guy's opinion," she said, brushing off the material a little.

He shrugged.

"Looks like a wedding dress."

She sighed.

"I know," she muttered. "I love the fit."

She moved forward, turning around and presenting her back.

"Get the zipper?" she asked.

He came forward and did so, unzipping quickly, pretending he wasn't really into it. He moved back as she went back into the closet, shimmying the dress off. He sat down on the edge of her bed.

"That's option one," she said, her voice muffled again.

"What's the occasion?"

"What if I am getting married?" she fired back wryly.

"Jen."

"Is it really that hard to believe?" she snorted.

It took her a moment to get into the next dress, and then she reappeared – in something sleek, black, and slightly shimmery that seemed to cling to her all the way down to her ankles. He ran his eyes from the top to the bottom, and then back up again slowly, and he swallowed, giving her a look.

"What's the occasion, Jen?" he repeated.

She sighed, and her arm slipped down to her side.

"It's one of those stifling charity balls," she muttered, an annoyed grimace touching her lips.

"You never needed help pickin' out clothes before," he grunted.

She put her index finger to her temple and pursed her lips, clearly trying to decide if she wanted to explain herself or night. She sighed again, resigned, and lowered her hand, parting her lips and eyeing him a little sheepishly.

"I'm trying to make someone jealous."

Gibbs cocked an eyebrow. He grinned.

"What did the poor bastard do?"

"It's a woman," Jenny retorted.

He pushed is eyebrow higher.

"It's not a sex thing," Jenny said, rolling her eyes. "Men," she murmured. "Not jealous of my affections, jealous of," she paused, chewing her lip. "It's hard to explain."

Gibbs looked at her intently. He shrugged. He didn't have any interest in figuring out why women were mean to each other; he figured whoever it was had done something to incite Jenny's wrath, and that was her business.

He sat back a little and folded his arms.

"These new dresses?" he grunted.

"Ziva lent me this," Jenny said, gesturing down at the black gown.

Gibbs nodded.

"Makes you look like you're tryin' to be sixteen."

She gave him an outraged look, but he just shrugged pointedly – she looked fantastic in it, sure, but it hugged too tightly, it tapered down to the ankle too much, and it was too obvious – and a little too snugly revealing –for a federal charity function.

She frowned, and then nodded to herself – technically, he was telling her what she already knew, and she just hadn't wanted to admit it.

"What about the cream?" she asked.

He shrugged a little.

"Looks like a wedding dress."

She nodded, and turned, going back into the closet.

"Well, it is a wedding dress," she retorted huffily – he heard her getting undressed again. "It needs to get some use out of it sometime – "

"Why'd you have a wedding dress laying around?" Gibbs snorted.

He heard her kick something aside, push aside some hangers, and then laugh.

"Because I'd already bought it," she answered.

He stared at her closet for a moment, and then tilted his head.

"For that guy you were gonna marry in ninety-eight?"

She made some sort of vague noise of agreement, and he furrowed his brow, trying to remember if she'd ever mentioned plans had gone that far. He sat there thinking about it, waiting for her to come out again.

"It still fits?" he asked, a little impressed.

"It's tighter," she answered, her voice getting louder again. "That's why I like it."

She re-appeared, and he looked up lazily, already bored with his job here – and then he stopped, and he just stared at her.

She'd put on something – he couldn't describe. It was a tight-fitting gown that gave the illusion of being loose – flowy, satin material hugged her, moved in a liquid-like fashion around her breasts, tightened up near her stomach and – when she turned a little – dipped low to show off her back.

He looked up, and noticed that the most striking feature of the dress was that somehow, it made her eyes greener – not just greener, but darker, emerald; bright.

He kept staring silently until she said –

"Jethro?"

He shook himself.

"Why the hell didn't you show me that one first?" he asked huskily.

She smiled a little, but she looked skeptical, and she plunged her hand into the material, stroking the skirt.

"It feels too cinematic."

Gibbs gave her a look; he didn't know what she meant by that – she looked surreal. She looked down at herself, flushing a little under his intense staring, and she studied herself in the gown again, stepping back to look at a mirror in her closet.

She leaned on the doorframe, tilting her head.

"It's not too much?"

He shook his head a little.

She bit her lip, and quickly stepped back – she still had to touch up her make-up and nails, and she didn't want to put the dress on until the last minute. She slipped it off, and pulled her robe back on, returning to the room. She folded her arms.

"So – the cream, the black, or the eau-de-nil?"

He blinked a few times, and then gave her a wary look.

"The green one," he grunted.

She smirked.

"It's eau-de-nil," she corrected.

He glared at her.

"It's a shade of green, Jethro – "

"So, it's green."

"You can't just call it green; that's uncouth."

"Fine. _Vert_."

She rolled her eyes.

"Clever," she remarked.

He sat there for a moment, annoyed with her. Then, he stood up.

"Look, Jen, everyone wears black or cream or red to these things," he pointed out. "Wear the," he paused, and then refused to say it: "green," he growled, "if you want to turn heads."

"Eau-de-nil," she whispered, her cheeks flushing.

He shrugged, and glanced down at her appreciatively, then over her shoulder towards the closet.

"Need an escort?" he offered.

"'M going stag," she whispered gently.

He smirked.

"For what it's worth," he drawled quietly, "I'm jealous of whoever you're makin' jealous."

She put her hand on his chest, and pushed him away, shaking her head. She turned away, and headed to her vanity, thinking about offering him a glass of whiskey before she kicked him out – she was glad he'd given her his opinion, but his gaze was reminding her just what she'd done when she'd given him up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: also -- the Jenny being engaged before she joining NCIS thing isn't canon, it's just a think i sort of have as a backstory in all my fics.


	6. F

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: like i said, none of these are connected to each other except that they're set when she was director ... so in some they may be sleeping together, in some not.

  
**F: Facetiae** _(noun): pornographic literature;_

While his lover was in the shower, Leroy Jethro Gibbs was engaging in his favorite past time: that being going through the drawers of her bedside table just to annoy her.

He'd missed doing this, in the six years she'd been gone, and he planned on letting her catch him, as he'd started doing it lazily when he heard her turn the water off, but in the meantime, it was interesting to see all the new things that had made her dresser their home.

His favorite so far was the unopened box of condoms – because it meant that she hadn't brought anyone home since she'd taken the Director's position, and she didn't use them with him because she used oral contraceptives and she knew he didn't have any diseases.

She'd gotten rid of the two old books that used to be in there and replaced them with new copies of nonfiction historical novels, and alongside those, a Cosmopolitan magazine. He picked that up just as she walked out of the bathroom in an untied cotton robe.

"Jethro, what the fuck are you doing?" she growled at him half-heartedly.

"Lookin' for your diary," he joked. "Still got Mrs. Jennifer Gibbs written all over it?" he deadpanned.

"No," she said. "Mrs. Jennifer Shepard Gibbs Shepard," she retorted, just as quick. "I was always realistic."

Gibbs rolled his eyes, flipping through the magazine.

"What are you looking for?" she goaded, striding over to her bureau and rummaging for underwear.

"Gonna take the quiz," he said seriously, glancing at her over the thing. "Don't put clothes on."

She slammed a drawer shut and came over, braiding her hair adeptly. She crawled up on the bed with him, her robe hanging loosely on her, damp in some places where she wasn't completely dry.

"How do you know there are quizzes?" she snorted.

"Been married three times," he grunted.

"Ah, you take relationship advice from Cosmo," Jenny sighed. "That explains a lot."

Gibbs ignored her, frowning. He didn't seem to be able to find what he was looking for – instead; he flipped to the back, hoping it was there. He found himself staring at a page with a picture of a couple kissing, and a title that read –

Excerpt: The Sailor's Liberty.

He stared at it, tilting his head. Jenny reached for the magazine.

"Give me that," she snapped.

He held it out of her reach.

"No," he retorted, his eyes scanning the page.

He was a fairly quick reader, when he wasn't really taking it in, and he got about a third a way through the little story before he realized it wasn't just a clip of a book – it was a dirty clip of a book.

He raised his eyebrows, taken aback, right when the sailor in the excerpt started lovingly caressing some…slang words for body parts.

Jenny took his moment of surprise to snatch the magazine away. He turned towards her, grinning wickedly, trying to snatch it back, but she'd slammed it into her drawer, and she glared at him, flushing.

"Did that get you goin', Gibbs?" she asked brazenly.

He snorted.

"You read stuff like that?" he asked loudly.

She gave him a look, her cheeks read.

"The Sailor's Liberty?" he said, laughing derisively.

"He's on liberty, and her name is Liberty, it's a play on – oh, like you've never watched a nudie flick – "

"You keep it by your bed."

"I like a little mindless facetiae as much as the next girl, once in a while!" she burst out, swatting at his smug shoulder.

"Mindless what?"

Jenny grit her teeth.

" _Porn_ , Jethro – written porn."

"You're too good to say porn, but you're keepin it in your – "

" _Facetiae_ is more elegant, it's written, it's not – sloppy thrusting around and grinding and – "

Gibbs arched his eyebrow at her, and she bit her lip, well aware she was basically describing realistic sex as opposed to the cinematic crap she was probably reading. He reached over her as if he was going to grab it again, and she squealed and pushed him away. He put his arm around her, smirking, and she hid her face, shaking her head.

"I like to read it, I don't like to watch it!" she protested. "It's just – better - !"

"What about doin' it?" he murmured, pressing his lips to her neck.

He pushed her onto her back gently and moved over her, nudging the robe down her shoulders. She laughed and reached for his neck, spreading her palm over it and arching an eyebrow.

"I've read some pretty sultry stuff, Jethro," she teased, arching her eyebrow.

He put his lips near her ear, his hand moving down her stomach.

"I can write a better story with my tongue," he growled.

She caught her breath in her throat, and tilted her head back, eyes closing – sometimes, she thought she needed a whole new word for what he could do to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, this is actually kind of a dated use of the word, but i didn't realize that until i looked up the actual definition because i learned it from an Austen novel. so i went with the older definition.


	7. G

  
**G: Genophobia** _(noun): the physical or psychological fear of sexual relations/intercourse (usually used in regards to heterosexuals);_ **syn.** _coitophobia, erotophobia._   


Jennifer Shepard made sure there was no one else in the bullpen before she sought him out; she didn't really want to share with the whole class. It was early in the morning, so no one had arrived yet – except herself, and Gibbs, naturally – so she casually perched on the side of his desk and smacked the file she was holding against her leg.

He grunted and looked up, leaning back in his chair.

"What'd I do?" he drawled, unconcerned. He glanced at his watch. "Not even seven o'clock."

She shook her head.

"You're not in trouble," she soothed, rolling her eyes.

She popped open the file on her lap, smirking. She turned it towards him, and tapped a section with her fingernail.

"Your subpoena for medical records of that Captain came through," she said. "I got it this morning – I thought you might get a kick out of it."

Gibbs scanned the information – medical history, physical and psychological, looking for the joke. He didn't really find anything, and he glanced up at her, one eyebrow arched skeptically.

"Outta what?" he asked.

She inclined her head, waving her hand.

"What his therapist was seeing him for," she said, gesturing to the therapist's notes.

Gibbs read over them –

….extreme Genophobia brings on fits of screaming, attacks, accusations, delusions…

Gibbs read the sentence a few times, and Jenny snorted.

"He isn't on the run from his fiancée because she's a Russian spy. It sounded like a ludicrous story, but it's true; she's telling the truth about him just being skittish – "

"You get that from this?" Gibbs interrupted skeptically.

Jenny blinked at him, and then she tilted her head.

"You don't know what it means, do you?" she asked, lifting her chin.

Gibbs glared at her. He wasn't going to admit that out loud –

"She tryin' to make him put pants on or somethin'? 'Cause he was wearin' 'em when he was murdered."

"It's not jean-ophobia, Jethro," she sighed, rolling her eyes. "Try again."

He glared at her some more, and she leaned closer, lowering her voice.

"I'll give you a hint," she murmured. "It's a fear of something I'm very good at."

"Bitching?" Gibbs deadpanned.

"Agent Gibbs," she snapped.

"You're bein' vague, Jen," he retorted, annoyed. He tilted is head at her pointedly. "Is it pronounced Jen-ophobia?"

"You – you seriously think I deserve to have an entire phobia reserved for me?"

"DiNozzo does."

Jenny glared at him.

"Sex, Gibbs," she said finally. "He's afraid of sex – he's running from his girlfriend because he's deathly terrified of intercourse."

Gibbs arched his eyebrows. He read over the sentence again. He sat back, and grinned a little.

"What a terrible thing," Jenny drawled. "He must have had a hard life."

"Apparently not," Gibbs quipped.

Jenny snatched the file back, smirking. She heard the elevator open, and smoothly stood up, stepping away from Gibbs' desk as Tony and Ziva came around the corner, lightly bickering as usual.

"I have a theory on our guy, Boss," began Tony.

"I have a better theory," began Ziva.

"Unless it involves Genophobia, you're wrong," Gibbs said bluntly, giving them both a good-morning glare.

He waited smugly to have to explain the condition, but instead, Ziva just cocked her head and said –

"He's afraid of sex?" Ziva snorted. "How American."

Jenny laughed, and handed the file over to Agent DiNozzo, shaking her head – Gibbs should have known that someone who spoke such a plethora of languages would know even the most obscure words, just to prove herself adequate.


	8. H

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: - hi, sorry i dropped off updating this! my bad!

  
**H: Hoyden** _(noun) : a girl or woman of saucy, boisterous, or carefree behavior;_ **syn:** _spitfire, wench_   


The Director was yelling at him again, but this time he wasn't bothered at all; this time he was prepared to win – because he had secretly come up with a way to dumbfound her into speechlessness, and he was simply waiting for the opportune moment to present itself. He was, in fact, standing in her office looking much too smug while she yelled at him, which was probably why she kept getting angrier, and kept yelling louder.

"I don't understand why I have to tell you constantly to just keep your mouth shut!" she raged.

She leaned forward and slammed her hand on her desk for effect, wisps of her hair falling over her eyes. She pursed her lips and used her free hand to whisk them back, glaring at him narrowly.

"You spend your entire life in silence – you don't talk unless you absolutely have to," she ranted, "but there's a reporter in the vicinity and you suddenly turn into the goddamn spokesperson for NCIS?"

Gibbs shrugged a little – the reporter in question had hit him in the nose with a microphone; so what if he'd gotten a little … er, sarcastic?

He shifted his feet and gave her a bored look.

She grit her teeth.

"I suppose now you're going to stand there in blessed silence?" she hissed.

"What do you want me to say, Jen?" he grunted, shrugging again. "The damn girl hit me in the nose – "

"Oh, _boo hoo_ ," snapped Jenny. "The big scary Marine got popped in the nose with a measly little _microphone_ – you didn't even bleed, you big hunk of _obnoxiou_ s rock – "

"Jen," he interrupted loudly, "Is it professional for the Director to call employees names?"

"I'll tell you what's professional," she snarled. "Addressing me as _Ma'am_!"

"Yes Ma'am," he snarked back, arching an eyebrow suggestively.

She licked her lips.

"You told a reporter that NCIS was in the business of putting women in jail for exercising freedom of speech!"

"That's not what I said, _Ma'am!_ " Gibbs retorted lightly.

"Close enough," Director Shepard growled.

Gibbs shook his head, striding forward a little. He picked up the remote and re-played the scene – a clear image of Gibbs, followed by Ziva, fighting his way through a crowd of media at a crime scene – the scene cut, and then Gibbs was standing there having Ziva physically restrain a female reporter, and the woman was saying –

_"—think you have the right to censor me for asking for information?"_

_"—you damn well almost earned yourself a night in jail!"_

\- and then it cut to the woman sorrowfully explaining how Gibbs was sexist, and anti-free speech.

Gibbs thrust his hand out.

"They cut out her hittin' me!"

"You still threatened her – "

"I told her she could go to jail for assaulting a federal officer – "

"Well that's just as ridiculously petulant, _Jethro_!" snapped Jenny loudly. She paused. "Do you need me to define petulant?" she asked icily.

He glared at her – but that was the moment; the moment he'd been waiting for – see, after too many incidents recently in which Madam Director had shamed him with her superior vocabulary, he'd made Ziva teach him some fancy words to use impressively – after swearing Ziva to secrecy, of course. So when Jenny asked if he needed the word explained – and luckily, he didn't need that one defined, because it had actually been a favorite of Diane's – he said:

"The arrogant hoyden act is gettin' _real_ old, Jenny."

Her lips snapped shut and she stared at him, so still her lashes didn't even move. He dared not smirk, but he felt incredibly proud of himself – it had been at the top of Ziva's list, and she'd told him it meant something like – rookie, Probie –

The redhead in front of him straightened a little, and then tilted her head, her eyes narrowing to studious slits.

"Jethro," she said shortly through grit teeth. " _What_?"

This time, he did smirk. He folded his arms.

"Don't know it, Jen?" he asked. "Thought you spoke Hebrew."

She flicked her eyes down, widened them, and then looked at him with large, serious eyes.

"In even the limited, rudimentary conversational Hebrew that I know, Agent Gibbs, I can tell you with absolute certainty that hoyden is an English word."

Gibbs blinked.

The smug feeling in his gut faltered a little, because he suddenly - very acutely – remembered that Ziva and the Director were very good friends, and Ziva had always thought it was fun to butt heads with him – she wasn't afraid of him like DiNozzo was – so she might have –

The Director suddenly started laughing. She sat down heavily in her chair and covered her face, taking a moment to just laugh – then she composed herself, and looked up seriously.

"What do you _think_ hoyden means?" she asked, attempting to keep a straight face.

He decided it was best to remain silent.

"I won't make fun of you," Jenny said seriously.

Gibbs grit his teeth.

"Ziva," he growled pointedly, "told me it meant rookie in Hebrew – "

Jenny burst out laughing again. He glared at her. She leaned back in her chair, shaking her head.

"She – " she started, and then paused, licking her lips. "Jethro – hoyden is an old-fashioned word, it means a girl who's … carefree, or loud," she listed.

She touched her fingertip to her lips and lifted her eyes a moment.

"My grandmother used to tell me I'd never hook a man if I kept acting like such a hoyden."

She figured that's why Ziva had given the word to Gibbs – because she knew it gave Jenny a good laugh.

Gibbs kept giving her an annoyed, stony look – his plans were thwarted, and he was decidedly unhappy about it – he was going to give Officer David desk work for a week - !

"So," Jenny said, arching a brow in triumphant amusement, "did Ziva give you any other words – you might want me to look over them, just in case she's playing games," Jenny trailed off.

Gibbs stood still for another silent few moments – at least he wasn't being chewed out anymore – and then he slowly, dejectedly, brought a lined piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it over to Director Shepard with a scowl.

She took it, slipped on her glasses, and started to scan the page with a small smirk – and then she burst out laughing –

"No, definitely don't use this against the media – it's vulgar, and that's not even the right definition – "

She looked up, and winked at him, puckering her lips mockingly.

"Don't worry, Jethro; in Israel she used to feed me dirty Hebrew phrases and tell me they meant things like 'Nice to meet you!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -sneaky Ziva strikes again!
> 
> -alexandra


	9. I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: this one ... honestly it got away from me, it's kind of heavy?

  
**I: Incipient** _(adjective): in an initial stage; beginning to happen or develop;_ **syn:** _emerging, dawning, initial_  


In general, the Director's ever-present security detail - even when it was just one or two, plainclothes, highly capable agents – loomed over her obnoxiously and made it incredibly difficult for her to enjoy a night out – even made her seem uninviting to prospective dates. But in this bar – a bar on a street near the Navy Yard, where the clientele was mostly federal cops, ex-military men, and a stray baseball fan or two – she was welcome; and at this bar, tonight, she was not cruising for a date or a warm body – she was following a hunch.

Her hunch was correct; despite his growling final words, Agent Gibbs hadn't gone home; he was hunched on a barstool in the corner, nursing a cloudy tumbler full of – bourbon, she guessed.

Director Shepard ditched her security at the door, and found her way to the barstool next to him.

When the bartender looked at her, she hesitated, and then she said –

"Vodka martini."

She sat down, and Gibbs moved his head slightly, his eyes falling to her ankles, and then climbing up slowly to her face. He arched an eyebrow.

"Vodka martini?" he repeated, dully surprised.

She shrugged a little, and gestured around.

"This dive bar has a Bond feeling to it."

Gibbs glanced over his shoulder at the honorific wall of fallen heroes – cops, special agents and the like – and then looked back at her. It was the only place in the city cops could hang out off duty without bringing down the feel of the place.

"Shaken or stirred?" he asked wryly, snorting as he lifted his whiskey to his lips.

She pressed her lips together as she accepted her martini glass from the bartender, and as she touched her fingertips to the base of the glass, she tilted her head.

"I think we're all a little of both," she murmured.

It had been a bad day at the office – for everyone. She had been dragged over the coals; the team had been put through the wringer – and all for nothing; all for a dismal outcome. Sometimes, she supposed, the dark basement just wasn't enough of an escape – too much quiet, too many memories. That's why she'd thought she'd find him here, with white noise in the background.

She took a sip of her martini; he looked behind him again, expert eyes scanning the room until he saw her two security guys. He exchanged silent, curt nods with each of them.

"Why not just go home, Director?" he asked in a low voice, his eyes on the racks of liquor behind the bar.

She shrugged, licking her lips.

"I could ask you the same."

He smirked a little. She ran her finger around the rim of her glass, and slipped her card to the bartender, gesturing between herself and Gibbs. He rolled his eyes a little, but didn't stop her from covering the tab.

"You tryin' to pick me up, Jen?" he drawled quietly, a hint of sarcasm in his tone.

"That," she said delicately, "would depend on what you mean – pick you up, take you home, and sleep with you: no," she said abruptly. "Pick you up as in – elevate your mood, well, Jethro," she paused, and took another sip of her drink. "Maybe."

He shook his head a little, refusing to look at her. Cases like these – they just took time to recover from. And he didn't believe for a second that she was any less horrified by the outcome than he was, except now she knew why it bothered him so much – ever since Mexico, he could feel her eyes following him when there was even the hint of a child involved, and that's why – that's why – he had never wanted anyone to know.

He drank the rest of his whiskey, and then stared down at the glass, and pushed it away.

"Another?" the bartender asked.

Gibbs just held up his hand negatively, shook his head.

"Ah, Jen," he said finally, hoarsely. "You should just go home."

She sipped on her drink a little, and turned towards him, lifting one shoulder.

"We always used to do this after bad cases," she remind him. "You, me – a bar."

He smirked, but there was no enjoyment in the little curve of his lips. He remembered, but he didn't like remembering how they'd been then anymore than he liked thinking about all the people he'd lost.

"Long time ago," he grunted.

"Ah, yes," she murmured. "Back when we were young and – innocent?" she joked.

He snorted quietly.

"You were never innocent."

"You were never young," she shot back.

She closed her eyes a moment.

"Just star-crossed incipient lovers," she muttered, a little wistfully – a little bitterly.

He scratched at a worn part of the wooden bar and looked over at her, his brow furrowing.

"Incipient," he remarked – half-question.

She licked her lips, and smirked.

"You know," she murmured, "beginners. Just starting, burgeoning," he gave her a glare at that, and she laughed under her breath. " _Probie lovers_."

He grunted.

"Incipient," he repeated. "Sounds sinister."

She swallowed the rest of her martini, and turned towards him fully, arching one eyebrow. She leaned her jaw on her palm, and studied him a moment.

"Yes, well," she sighed, "maybe it was that, too."

He finally turned and looked at her, and he said:

"I'm okay, Jen."

His voice was raw, and completely unconvincing. She knew he wasn't okay – there was no reason for him, or his team – or even she – to be okay, when their inability to solve the case in time had resulted in a little boy's death.

She ran her hand over his knee, clicked her tongue, and then took his elbow, and she pulled on him a little. He got up almost mechanically, and seemed to resign himself to going with her – and he knew exactly what was happening; she _was_ picking him up, in both ways of the phrase.

He followed her, and stopped short at the door, raising one eyebrow dully.

"We takin' these guys with us?" he asked, eyeing the security detail as they stepped forward.

"They're discreet," murmured Jenny.

She nudged Gibbs through the door in front of her, and she caught one of her men's arms, and pulled his hear down to her lips.

"Drop us at Agent Gibbs' house," she ordered simply.

With the utmost discretion, her agents did just that.


	10. J

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: vive la france !

**J: Jacobin**   _(noun): a member of an extremist or radical political group;_ **syn:** _fanatic_

 

_"What did you do with DiNozzo?"_

The Director didn't even look up when her door was thrown open and one of her agents stormed in – she was used to such behavior, and she'd carefully trained herself not to react to it. She was so good at remaining unshaken and calm at this point that she was beginning to think she would make a much better mother than she'd ever originally thought.

If she had – or wanted – kids.

"Ah, Agent Gibbs," she sighed, looking up wryly and sweeping off her glasses. "What can I do for you?"

The man in question marched up to her desk with a steely glare and planted his palms on the polished wood, knocking over a jar of pencils in the process. She gave the pencils a pointed look, and then wrinkled her nose at him.

"Pick those up," she ordered.

"What did you do with DiNozzo?" he repeated aggressively.

She held out her hand, exasperated.

"What do you mean, what did I  _do_  with him?" she asked sarcastically.

"He's gone," Gibbs barked.

"How is that possibly my responsibility – "

"He came up here to have a talk with you, and no on has seen him since."

Jennifer Shepard stared at her former boss – for a moment, even as his current boss, she was speechless at the insinuation.

"Jethro, are you suggesting I – murdered him and threw him into the Potomac?"

She regretted her specific choice of words as soon as she said it, because he snapped back –

"Wouldn't be the first time."

She stood and leaned forward.

"You don't know what you're talking about, Agent Gibbs," she snarled dangerously.

He eyed her a moment, and then he reigned himself in some, and straightened a little.

"You send him home?" he probed. He jerked his chin downwards. "He's not under your desk, is he?"

Jenny bristled, giving him an annoyed look.

"I had a talk with him, and then I sent him off to apologize to Ziva."

"What the hell did he do to Ziva?" Gibbs demanded.

Then, he lowered his head and gave her another glare.

"I can discipline my own team, Jen."

"Obviously not."

"Stay out of my bullpen!"

"Keep your voice down," she fired back, rolling her eyes.

She sighed, grit her teeth, and leaned forward.

"My best guess is that your best agent is hiding from the wrath of a woman much smaller than him – "

"Please, Jen, Ziva could rip the Hulk to shreds," Gibbs snorted.

Jenny nodded, allowing that – then she went on:

"I had him up here because he made some sarcastic comment about Ziva's father that got dangerous."

Gibbs pulled back, and crossed his arms. His brow furrowed. Jenny hesitated, and then she sat down again, leaning back.

"It was just Tony joking around," she admitted, shrugging, "but Ziva is – much more sensitive to some topics than she lets on, and it was a stakeout, she'd had no sleep – she came up here threatening to have Tony deported to Iran – "

"DiNozzo is a citizen!"

"Well, she implied he wouldn't be when Mossad was done with him."

Gibbs grit his teeth – so Tony was hiding in a corner somewhere because he was scared of Ziva, and Ziva had her feelings hurt by some dumbass thing Tony had said – well, it sounded like –

"Those two," Gibbs snarled, frustrated.

Jenny arched an eyebrow.

"Need to resolve that sexual tension?" she suggested wryly.

Gibbs snorted.

"Ha," he laughed. "Not on my team."

"Of course not," Jenny said, deadpan. "You'd never allow that sort of friskiness."

He gave her a look, and she leaned forward, smirking.

"Your Officer David is very frustrated with the lukewarm state of Israeli-U.S. politics right now," she said slyly. "Tony somehow figured out how to push that button, and Ziva got very… _Jacobin…_ about it – "

"This all happened 'cause of a guy? DiNozzo's jealous?"

Jenny blinked.

"What?"

Gibbs glared at her.

"Who's Jacob?" he demanded.

"I said  _Jacobin_."

"Yeah."

" _Jacobin_  is not a person."

Gibbs stared at her, and Jenny bit her lip. She held up her hand.

"Okay, okay – Jacobin, it's a term for someone radically political about all politics, or a certain issue, originated in the French Revolution – seriously, Jethro, I took you to so many museums – "

"All I remember about that is the jeans you were wearin'!"

Jenny frowned; she rolled her eyes, and she tilted her head back.

"Right," she muttered. "To be fair – I actually do feel pretentious this time," she mumbled to herself, wincing a little.

Gibbs gave her the most long-suffering look, and sighed.

"So Ziva's mad because Tony insulted her political views?"

"Jethro," the Director sighed dramatically, "they're made at each other for everything because they're in love."

Gibbs gave her a narrow, suspicious look and approached her desk very slowly, holding eye contact menacingly.

"Jenny," he said quietly, pointedly, "my team is not a  _chick flick_ ," he growled, and then pointed at her sharply, "if you encourage them, you bet your ass I'll get –  _Jacobin_  – about it with you – "

He turned around and violently stormed out – leaving her wondering if he'd forgotten his coffee this morning, considering he was more recalcitrant than normal – and she didn't even get to tell him that he wasn't even really using the new word exactly right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -bit of a la grenouille / france theme, eh?
> 
> -alexandra


	11. K

**K: Kismet** _(noun): destiny, fate;_   **syn:**   _circumstance, fortune_

The Director of NCIS stared at a tiny metal switch, silently willing it to behave itself. She watched as a hand that wasn't hers flipped it up and down carelessly, and she narrowed her eyes.

"Jethro, stop touching it," she ordered finally, rolling her eyes. "It's broken."

He flipped the switch up and down again, ignoring her order.

"How'd it break?" he demanded gruffly.

She gave the back of his head a ridiculously annoyed look, and grit her teeth.

"This is just a guess," she began loudly, "but it probably has something to do with you theatrically bringing it to a screeching halt whenever you're trying to impress someone."

He stopped hitting the switch and turned, glaring at her.

"'M not tryin' to  _impress_  anyone."

She rolled her eyes.

"Good," she muttered. "Getting me stuck in here is distinctly unimpressive."

Gibbs rolled his eyes at her, mimicking her annoyance, and slammed his fist onto the alarm button.

A ringing sound started, and Jenny winced.

"I didn't get you stuck in here," Gibbs said, raising his voice.

He stepped back and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms and staring at her obnoxiously. She leaned against the opposite wall, and pushed her hair back, gritting her teeth tensely.

"You  _broke_  the elevator!"

He gave her a look – he hadn't done anything he didn't normally.

"Wouldn't have happened if you hadn't chased me in here," he retorted pointedly.

"I didn't chase – "

"The doors hit you in the ass on your way in, Jen!"

The smart ass little smile on his face annoyed her, and she frowned, biting the inside of her lip stiffly. The only reason she'd had to chase him into the damn elevator was because he was ignoring her calls and requests to come up to his office  _immediately_.

Gibbs tilted his head.

She pursed her lips.

"Why'd you hit the stop button?" she asked, exasperated. "I hadn't even said anything yet!"

"Wanted to talk to you."

She gave him a frustrated snort.

"I chased you in here because you  _wouldn't_  come talk to me!"

"Wanted it to be on my turf."

"Really, Agent Gibbs?  _Really_?"

He shrugged, and grinned. She licked her lips and shook her head, raising her eyes to the ceiling. She counted quietly in her head, and then met his eyes again, raising an eyebrow.

"Now we're stuck for God knows how long," she growled. "The whole agency is going to talk – "

"They already talk, Jen."

A loud knocking sounded on the doors.

"BOSS? YOU IN THERE?"

Agent DiNozzo's voice bellowed through the metal.

Gibbs gave the Director a very mischievous look.

"Yeah," he drawled loudly. He paused, and then winked at her wickedly. "Director wanted a  _private_  talk."

Jenny narrowed her eyes viciously.

"I will personally kill you when we get out of here," she snarled.

DiNozzo shouted a muffled something back, and then presumably hopped off to help with the rescue.

Gibbs stared at Jenny, and she stared back.

"Well," he said slowly, arching a brow. "You wanted to talk to me; I wanted to talk to you."

"You never want to talk, Jethro," she snapped. "You were probably planning on hitting me on the head with a club and dragging me into your cave."

"Not really my fault we got stuck, Jen."

She gave him a nasty little sneer.

"Must be kismet," she hissed.

He arched an eyebrow suggestively, and leaned forward a little.

"Easy on the advances Director; at least buy me dinner first."

She blinked angrily, and then she pulled back and tilted her head, furrowing her brow.

"Where did – what?" she asked.

He blinked back at her, and then he narrowed his eyes.

"What did you say?" he asked finally, warily.

" _Kismet_."

He blinked, and then said nothing, setting his jaw.

"Kismet," she repeated loudly. "Destiny, fate," she listed, rolling her eyes.

The elevator suddenly jerked, and moved downward with a swoop, and she stumbled towards the middle. Gibbs stood forward; looking up to see what floor they were on.

She pursed her lips, and glanced at him.

"What did you think I said?"

"Kismet," he muttered stubbornly, staring ahead as the doors opened.

Jenny frowned, staring out of the elevator into the lab. She was still standing there when he started to get off – and then suddenly something clicked, and she reached out and grabbed his elbow sharply.

"Jethro," she gasped, holding back a laugh. "Did you – think I said  _kiss me_?"

He yanked his arm out of hers sheepishly and stormed off.


	12. L

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: apologies for the wait!

**L: Lachrymose**   _(adjective): tearful or given to weeping;_   **syn:**   _mournful, weepy_

Jennifer Shepard was incredibly annoyed that a certain senior agent insisted he was too busy to come up to her office for a discussion. She was immensely irritated that he had sworn up and down that he needed to kill two birds with one stone, and that it was imperative she meet him in autopsy for said discussion. Her growing  _irritation_  and  _annoyance_  was due to the fact that he clearly wasn't that busy – evidenced by the fact that Ducky wasn't even here, performing an autopsy, and once she arrived, Leroy Jethro Gibbs seemed to have plenty of time to lean against the autopsy freezers and jiggle the handle of one obnoxiously.

"I get it, Agent Gibbs," she said stiffly.

He shrugged his shoulders bluntly.

"Get what?" he asked, feigning innocence.

"You're trying to intimidate me out of my decision," she snapped.

He gave her that same slightly blank, innocent look.

"Don't know what you're takin' about, Director."

She grit her teeth.

"You demanded I come down here to discuss this because you think autopsy makes me nervous – well, let me tell you,  _Jethro_ , I'm not a  _Probie_  anymore – "

He shrugged again – and somehow, the shrug actually succeeded in cutting her off.

He yanked on the autopsy door.

"Autopsy makes you nervous?" he asked blankly.

He slid it open a little.

"It's just dead bodies, Jen."

She gave him a defiant look.

"That was  _one_  time," she snapped, ignoring him. " _One_  time – and I was twenty-five – and - this isn't going to work, Gibbs, my mind is made-up – "

He slid open the drawer further.

"Don't know what you're talkin' about, Jen," he repeated. He tilted is head. "I came down here to solve a case, can't find Ducky," he lamented coolly. "Figured if you could talk while I worked – "

"Bullshit," she interrupted curtly. "Ducky's on lunch – "

"You wanna take a look at this for me, then? Give me your opinion?"

He slid the autopsy slab open in a more leisurely fashion, and she strode forward and put her hand on it, slamming it shut. She dug her nails into his wrist a little, forcefully pinning his hand to the metal door.

"Enough."

He gave her a lazy, triumphant grin.

"Squeamish, Jen?"

"Autopsy isn't even your turf, Jethro."

He shrugged.

"Anything to distress the enemy."

"Well, that's very astute of you, Sun Tzu," she snarled. "I am not your  _enemy_  – and I'm only asking you to take Agent Jardine on for two weeks!"

"Two weeks more than I need 'er!" Gibbs retorted. "I already got a Probie – "

"Don't give me that. Agent McGee has not been an official Probie for quite some time now."

"I got Ziva – "

"If Ziva was ever any sort of Probie, even at Mossad, then I'm the Queen of England."

Gibbs set his jaw – he couldn't exactly argue with that. He narrowed his eyes.

"She's crazy, Jen," he pointed out.

"She's different," corrected Jenny, frustrated. "And I'm not punishing you alone – it's a new program; I want to rotate potential new special agents on teams, and get feedback from all the leaders – "

"You got my feedback: I don't want her."

She glared at him. He tried to yank his hand away from her, but she dug her nails in sharper.

"I don't know why you think this is a negotiation. There's even an extra desk in your bullpen. Nikki Jardine will be assigned to your team for two weeks starting tomorrow at six-hundred."

Gibbs threw his head back against the freezers; it made a loud  _thunking_  noise.

"Jenny!" he whined.

"No one else is giving me this much trouble," Jenny informed him. "You're the only one who thinks you can undermine my authority, just because – "

He rolled his eyes, and gave her a long-suffering look.

"This isn't a damn chauvinist thing, Jen, I don't like the woman!" he groused. "You want me to add a germophobe to a team with a skirt-chaser, an Elf Lord, and an assassin – "

"Well, my my, Jethro, I didn't know you were running a SitCom out of the Navy Yard."

"You're trying to put me in an early grave!" he moaned, slumping down against the freezers.

She stepped back, and folded her arms, giving him an arch look. She shook her head.

"Christ; it's temporary," she reminded him. "It's a good program."

He raised his eyes to the ceiling as if he was being tortured, and she arched her brow, giving him a wry look.

"There's no need to be so  _lachrymose_  about it, Gibbs."

He kept staring at the ceiling silently, and then in a quick instant, he glanced at her, twitched his lips a little, and looked back up at the ceiling defiantly.

"Lachrymose?" he repeated finally, a grudging tone in his voice.

She laughed, and leaned forward.

"You know," she said smugly, "weepy, sorrowful –  _prone to tears_."

He straightened up and glared at her with bravado, giving her an annoyed look.

"Weepy?" he quoted. " _Weepy_?"

"That's how I plan to describe you to your team," she retorted innocently.

He brushed her out of his way and stormed off, muttering to himself angrily – she smirked as she watched him stomp out of autopsy, and heard the ping of the elevator – she was willing to bet he was on his way to tell the entire time the program was his idea in the first place.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -you bet your ass i learned this word from an Evanescence song


	13. M

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: blanket 'apologies for the wait' for the rest of this story, honestly. my ass is busy trying to get a job.

 

**M: Misandry**   _(noun): hatred of men_

 

As Gibbs was walking up the short drive of the brownstone, Jenny's housekeeper was walking down. She had a cloth bag over her shoulder and the usual calm, sweet look in her eyes when she stopped in front of Gibbs.

"She home?" Gibbs asked.

" _Si_ ," Noemi answered. "But I not think she want to see anyone," she added.

"She'll see me," Gibbs said bluntly.

Noemi raised her eyes to the heavens and shook her head a little.

"But  _Senor,_  you  _always_  think that, and she never do!"

Gibbs grinned a little, and shook his head.

"Nah, she's just pretending."

Noemi shrugged, and stepped aside, gesturing.

"I leave door open," she advised, and winked. "You want to make her mad, you suit yourself."

Gibbs gave her a small nod and continued his way up – he knew at least some part of the Director would be expecting him to show up and poke around; he'd witnessed the complete debacle that had been her showdown with the Director of ATF this morning – and he hadn't seen her since, so he guessed it got to her more than she let on.

He entered the house as he had so many times before and glanced down towards the study; she wasn't there.

"Jen?" he called.

No answer, so he walked up the stairs. He strolled towards the master bedroom, and stared at the cracked door for a moment before he nudged it with his knee, and poked his head in.

"Jen?"

There was silence for a moment, and then he saw movement under her sheets.

" _Jethro_ ," she growled. "Just because you let people wander into your house does not mean that's common practice for the rest of us humans."

He smirked.

"Can I come in?"

"You're already in!"

"You decent?"

"Why don't you open the door and find out?"

Gibbs arched his brows. He opened the door and stepped in – and she was sitting up in bed pointing a gun at him. He gave her a look, and stopped short, his hands dangling at his sides.

"This is how I greet unannounced men," she said coolly.

"Jen, when I trained you, I told you not to point a weapon unless you intended to use it."

"Who says I'm not going to use it?"

He glared at her.

"Put the gun down."

She tossed it down, and he gave her a scandalized look.

"It's not loaded," she muttered, drawing her knees up to her chest and tossing her hair back.

"Why the hell would you sleep with an unloaded gun?"

She shrugged. She didn't like to shoot people; he knew that. At least – she didn't like to shoot people without a lot of calculated moral thought going into it, and besides – when it came to shooting people who intruded, in this gun-shy country the person who shot the intruder usually got in more trouble.

Gibbs came forward.

"You're in bed early," he remarked.

She rubbed her jaw and gave him a look. She looked tired, and pale.

"Why are you here?" she asked.

"'Cause you had a bad day."

She shrugged.

"I have a lot of bad days, Jethro," she remarked, leaning back heavily against her headboard. She shrugged. "You don't always come running over."

"Yeah, well," he grunted, approaching. He sat down on the edge of her bed. "I saw this one."

She gave him a wry look, and then leaned forward.

"You thought you were the only man who treats me like that?"

He reached over and grabbed her wrist gently, giving her warning look.

"I never treated you like that, Jen," he growled.

She arched an eyebrow at him, and nodded.

"I know," she said quietly. "I am being prickly, and you're an easy target."

He gave her a knowing look. He smiled a little, and let go of her wrist. He looked at her a moment.

"Jen," he started. He paused. He gave her a wary look. "That's not – common?"

She gave him a hard look right back, and nodded.

"Men don't like taking orders from women," she said coolly.

Gibbs shrugged.

"Doesn't mean they have to act like that."

"Why don't you declare that up at the next boy's club meeting?" she retorted nastily.

Gibbs gave her a mild look, and shrugged.

"I don't hold an office, I just bring the bourbon," he said, deadpan.

She smiled a little, and kicked him in the thigh. She took a deep breath, and then leaned forward, resting her chin on her knees. She swallowed hard, and looked down.

"Jenny," he said, giving her a look.

"I'm so sick of it," she said hoarsely. "I'm so sick of having to deal with this bullshit."

He frowned – he hadn't had any idea, really. The light banter he engaged in with her – slightly chauvinistic, but respectful for the most part – was nothing compared to the things he'd heard go down between her and the ATF director – and worse, what the ATF guys had said when they thought they were off the air.

"Do you know how hard it is to take control in a room of people who think you'd be ' _easier to deal with if you just got a good fucking_ '?"

Gibbs shook his head.

"No," he said seriously.

He paused, and then tilted his head.

"Want me to tell 'em I know for a fact you aren't any easier after a good one?"

She tilted her head back and burst out laughing, startled by the audacity of his comment – anyone else who'd made such light of the situation would have had their throat ripped out, but not Jethro. Gibbs was chauvinistic, but in a chivalrous way – he didn't hate women; he didn't think she was worth less than he was.

"You know, you know – a little chauvinism doesn't bother me – it gets me goin'," she confessed. "But this … this awful mentality these guys have – it's why sometimes Feminism can be confused with misandry."

"Hmm," Gibbs grunted. "Misogyny," he said, as if correcting her.

She gave him a look.

"No," she corrected right back. "Misandry." She laughed a little. "You can't really confuse Feminism and misogyny," she snorted.

He stared at her, and she sighed pointedly.

"Misogyny is the hatred of women.  _Misandry_  is the hatred of men," she clarified. She pushed her hair back. "Men love to claim Feminists hate men," she muttered. '

Gibbs thought about that for a minute.

"I hate that ATF guy," he decided. "That make me a misandry-guy?"

Jenny laughed quietly.

"Jethro, I don't know what you are."

He gave her a brilliant smirk, and she sighed, leaning back heavily. She considered him a moment, and then glanced at the clock – it was early for bed, and he was here – and he did remind her of easier days, when she didn't have to try and win a measuring contest with equipment she didn't have.

She parted her lips.

"Want to stay over and make me easier to deal with?" she asked huskily.

He arched an eyebrow at her – and grinned, shifting, and crawling onto her bed. He caught her eye, planting his knees on either side of hers.

"What's the word for liking women?" he asked in a low voice.

Jenny laughed, a little sarcastically.

"I don't think anyone knows."


	14. Chapter 14

 

**N: Nebulous** _(adjective) : (of a concept or idea) vague, unclear, or ill-defined;_   **syn:**   _uncertain, hazy, indefinite_

Leroy Jethro Gibbs prided himself on his grandiose elevator gestures; however, he found he didn't quite like it when the tables were turned. So, when the Director slammed her hand down on the emergency stop button and backed him into a corner with an annoyed glare, he felt both wary and slightly mollified.

"Jethro," she snarled, shaking a piece of paper at him wildly. "You had  _one_  job."

He gave her a searching look, taking another step back. He blinked – to be honest, he hadn't known she was serious about the thing she'd asked him to do. He'd kind of thought she was jerking him around.

"My job's investigatin'," he retorted. "Your job is politics."

"It wasn't politics!" she snapped. "It was just a meeting!"

"On politics," he retorted stubbornly.

"No," she growled, teeth clenched tightly, "it was on budget issues – you're  _currently_  an agent, you know better than I do what we need in terms of gear, and ammunition – "

"They were just talkin' about numbers!"

"You had to listen better than that!" she shouted.

She waved the paper again.

"Instead, you sat there and doodled – "

"You really expected me to take notes on that crap, Jen?" he interrupted, starting to smirk – he thought better of that when he saw the look on her face, though. "I was damn near about to fall asleep!"

She wanted to reach out and shake him – she hadn't been able to make that particular meeting, and she'd asked Gibbs to sit in because she knew he wasn't doing anything in the bullpen, and she figured he'd be the best at not taking down a bunch of unnecessary crap.

"You should've sent McGee if you wanted a technical report," Gibbs snorted.

"I didn't  _want_  a technical report," she barked. "I wanted a straightforward account – a bulleted  _list,"_ she explained. She crumpled the piece of paper he'd put in her hands a moments before she looked at it and then gone ballistic.

He shrugged, and she narrowed her eyes.

"Why did you agree to do it if you were going to be such a  _prick_?"

He pointed to himself.

" _Agree_?" he quoted, arching his brows. "You  _made_  me!"

"Oh, like I ever make you do anything," she snapped wearily. She held up the paper. "Why did you do this?"

He looked at the drawing and shrugged a little.

"S'just what came to mind," he said dully.

Her eyes nearly popped out of her head.

"This? This is what  _came to mind_?"

He gave her a funny look, wondering why she was so pissed – yeah, he'd handed her a paper with a sketch on it instead of the actual notes she'd asked for, but for some reason she was really, really losing it –

"Yeah," he grunted. "So?"

"I asked you to take notes because I figured you'd provide me with the least amount of nebulous information – "

He flung his hand out.

"That's why it came to mind," he told her insistently. "Nebulas – made me think of space and – "

" _Are you telling me this happened because you don't know what nebulous means?"_

He gave her an annoyed look. She turned and flipped on the elevator, jamming her finger into the button for the catwalk. She crossed her arms, the paper crumpling against her side.

"Nebulous, Jethro – it means vague, or undefined – unclear information," she snapped. "You're a no-nonsense guy; I thought you'd represent the facts the best."

He blinked.

She threw up her hands.

"I guess this is just your way of telling me to go fuck myself," she snapped angrily.

He stepped forward, taking the paper from her and smoothing it out.

"What the hell are you talkin' about, Jen?" he griped. "It's fittin' – NASA gets all the money anyway – "

"What are you talking about?" she demanded, jabbing the paper with her finger.

He glared at her, and she glared at him. Then, she tilted her head slightly, and narrowed her eyes.

"What is this?" she asked, tapping the paper.

He gave her an odd look.

"What did you think it was?" he asked.

She paused.

"It looks – what is it?" she demanded again.

He shrugged.

"It's a rocket ship."

She looked from him, the drawing, and up again. Then she squinted hard at the paper. Then she flushed slightly, stepped back, and refused to look at him.

"Jen?" he asked, somewhat amused.

"I think you need to sharpen the edges of your drawings a bit more, Jethro," she said stiffly. "That is a cylindrical object with two … round … things at the base."

"Rocket ship," he repeated, looking at it again.

The elevator doors opened, and Ziva strolled on, pausing when she saw the elevator was occupied. She looked from the Director, to Gibbs, and then curiously down at the drawing. She cocked a dark eyebrow, and looked up at her boss.

"At Mossad, passing notes with male genitalia on them to the boss is frowned upon," she said coolly.

Gibbs looked down at the drawing again; it finally clicked what Jenny must have thought it was when he handed it to her – and why she'd gotten so ticked off about it. He started to grin, and then thought better of himself.

"Jen," he snorted. "Come on – " he started.

She stormed past him and snatched the paper, crumbling it into a ball, turning, and throwing it at him. Gibbs forgot to get off the elevator and follow her, and the doors shut on her retreating form.

He felt Ziva turned and look at him critically. He stared straight ahead for a moment, and then cleared his throat.

"It was a  _rocket ship_ ," he said, a little perturbed to hear how sheepish he sounded.

Ziva made a small noise of derision.

"All men seem to think so."


	15. O

**O: Obfuscate** _(verb) : render obscure, unclear, or unintelligible;_ **syn:** _blur, cloud, befog_

Director Jennifer Shepard was incredibly annoyed with the shit she kept getting stuck dealing with.

For a bunch of old misogynists who seemed to be of the constant opinion that she just needed to calm down and take a Midol, the male directors of her sister agencies seemed obnoxiously comfortable with handing her the most infuriating, belittling tasks.

She stood in her office, having slammed her phone down for the third time – it was not the charm, as it turned out, and she was resigning herself to the fact that the FBI was ignoring her calls.

She highly doubted he was out  _playing golf_  at two in the afternoon on a Tuesday.

She rubbed her temples, and then placed her hands on the desk, palms down, tensely.

She glared at the two miscreant agents milling about near her conference table.

"Gibbs," she barked. "Fornell," she added, in a low growl.

They turned and looked at her with an annoying level of synchronization; they even had the same insolent look in their respective eyes.

"It looks like your director is passing the buck, Tobias," Jenny said icily. "I get to discipline you," she drawled sarcastically. "Again."

It was bad enough she always had to put Gibbs in time-out; now the FBI was handing over its disciplinary problems to her as well – which was especially maddening, since it was easy for her to rip Gibbs a new one; he was her employee. With Fornell, she ran the risk of yelling at him – which he deserved – and then the FBI director getting prickly about it, like the parent of a kid she was babysitting who she was too harsh with.

"You gonna throw me over your knee, Director?" Fornell asked.

Jenny held up one hand.

"Do I even have to explain how inappropriate that comment was?" she asked tightly.

Rather hastily, Fornell composed his face, wiping the smirk off of it, and shook his head.

"No, Ma'am."

"Pushover," Gibbs growled, clearing his throat.

" _Gesundheit_ , Agent Gibbs," Jenny said crisply, recognizing the little coughing stunt for what it was.

He raised his eyebrows mildly.

"Didn't know you spoke German, Jen," he mused innocently.

She gave him cold look.

"Director," he corrected.

She clenched her fists a moment, and then stood up.

"I'm tempted to just chain you both to a desk and drown you in paperwork," she said dryly. "You've both heard this speech too many times for it to make a difference."

"Glad you feel that way," Fornell said.

"Nice talk," Gibbs said.

They both turned to dart out, and she held up her hands.

"Hold it," she barked. "You're going to hear it one more time."

Both grown men groaned; they turned to her seriously, shoulders a little less stiff, slumped slightly. Gibbs set his jaw, and Fornell had the good grace to look less smug about his actions.

Gibbs dipped his head, and said something quietly; Fornell snorted, hastily coughed, and nodded.

Jenny resisted the urge to demand to know what they were whispering about like little schoolgirls, but she was more mature than that; she ignored them, and took a deep breath – starting her tirade:

"Your excruciating inability to interact with the press, politicians, or any sort of human being other than your fellow agents is a source of constant exhaustion to me," she snapped. "I would be ecstatic if I could go one case without one of you punching a cameraman, knocking some female anchor into a puddle, or generally pissing off the entire media population of the D.C. metro area."

She paused to glare at them both seriously.

"I would be remiss if I didn't mention your appalling tendency to say ludicrous and offensive things that get caught on camera – "

"I got misquoted!"

"That's not what I said!"

Both of them protested like babies, and Jenny ignored them.

"You should know by now to stick to no comment – to just keep your damn mouths shut around the media, because they are seasoned pros when it comes to the tendency to obfuscate the meaning of – "

She broke off, startled, as Fornell turned to Gibbs with a sudden green, reaching into his coat pocket. He pulled out a wallet, opened it, and smacked a twenty-dollar bill into Gibbs' palm.

Jenny parted her lips in disbelief.

" _What_  the  _hell_  – "

Fornell laughed.

"Bet 'im twenty bucks you'd throw a fancy old word in there in under two minutes," Gibbs said smugly.

Jenny's parted lips fell open into actual shock. She wasn't sure which part of that to be angry about; she almost jumped across the desk and throttled them both, but instead, she thought about how ludicrous that was –

"So essentially, the two of you just bet on the inevitable probability that you're dumber than I am?"

The smiles faded immediately, and she felt a surge of triumph.

She stood up straight, folding her arms – the posture she assumed made her feel strangely like the evil queen from a fairytale, about to carry out her sinister plan.

Gibbs looked down at the money in his hand; Fornell tilted his head somewhat quizzically, as if he hadn't thought of it that way. In their dumfounded silence, Jenny cleared her throat.

"In case either of you were wondering, 'obfuscate' means to make things unclear, or unintelligible," she said smoothly.

She considered them a moment, and then walked swiftly around her desk and over to them. With grace, she plucked the cash from Gibbs' hand, and pointed firmly to her metal door.

"Get out of my office."


	16. Chapter 16

**P: Peignoir** _(noun) : a woman's light dressing gown or negligee_

 

It was boredom that drove him to Jenny's brownstone on a Saturday night: boredom, as in, he was out of bourbon, and he'd inexplicably hit himself twice with a hammer, so the boat wasn't making him happy and – well, even sullen, loner misanthropes occasionally needed human contact. He milled around on her doorstep for a minute, trying to figure out if he was going to bullshit some excuse for being here or just cop to the fact that loneliness did get to him sometimes.

He decided to get her mail and bring it to her. Except she didn't have any mail. Noemi must have gotten it.

Thwarted, he just trudged up to her doorstep again. He started to knock, and then changed his mind and decided to try the door. It was open – there, he could claim he was checking on her in a security-driven, totally professional manner.

"Director," he called seriously, slamming her door. "You can't keep your damn door unlocked – what if someone breaches the perimeter?"

To his surprise, she poked her head out of the kitchen, glaring at him dubiously.

"I think if someone were going to make a federal agent themed porno, it would start like that."

He gave her a mildly annoyed look, and put his hands in his pockets. She shuffled out of her kitchen and glided past him, locking the door with pointed loudness. She cradled a mug of tea in one hand and arched an eyebrow.

"What are you doing here?"

He shrugged. He glanced over his shoulder.

"You locked me in," he deadpanned, sighing stiffly. He looked down at her – and then did a double take, arching his brow. "What the hell are you wearing?"

It was long and silky and lacy and billowy and – all kinds of things – and black and red and – sort of clingy, but also loose and ethereal. He cleared his throat sheepishly and took a step back, boldly getting a better look. She moved her hands, and pointedly held her mug directly in front of her cleavage.

"Pajamas."

"Like hell," Gibbs snorted. "You never had pajamas like that in Europe."

Jenny laughed shortly.

"Yes, you're right, Jethro, I'm so sorry – all those nights I was buck naked I should have been wearing pajamas, where were my manners?"

"Point taken," he said dryly.

"Tea?" she asked.

He took her cup from her hands and took a long sip – too much sugar. He made a face, and held it back out to her; she folded her arms and glared at him, eyes narrowing.

"I mean I would make you some."

"What's the harm in sharin' a little spit, Jen?"

"I'm your boss, you know," she said mildly.

He gave her a serious look.

"That's a very inappropriate outfit to wear for a subordinate, Boss."

Her brow furrowed slightly, and she gave him a quizzical look. He sounded absurdly flirtatious, and she chalked it up to there being a full moon lingering among the clouds. She cleared her throat, and slipped past him to the stairs.

"I'm watching a James Bond marathon," she said, the invitation clear.

He started to follow her, but found himself stalled; he almost tripped over the long train of her ridiculous –

"Jen, what the hell is this?" he demanded again. "It's like a, a," he fumbled for something to say.

"Peignoir?" Jenny supplied.

He gave her a wary look, and shrugged.

"Yeah, you sure as hell look like somethin' out of some old French bastard's painting."

He was going to compare it to a White House charity ball gown, but for prostitutes, except he was realizing now that would have been monumentally stupid, so he was glad she interrupted him. Jenny rested her hand on the bannister, her shoulders falling as she stared at him curiously.

"What?" she asked, taken aback.

He shrugged, and gestured heavily.

"It's long and, dunno," he said inelegantly. "Aristocratic. Like that stuff in the paintings at the Louvre."

She stared at him for a long, silent moment. Then, she moved her head, as if something had clicked.

"I said peignoir," she said, biting back a laugh, "not Renoir."

His jaw twitched.

Jenny lifted her arm and swished the fabric of her nightgown.

"This is a peignoir – it's like a sexy, old fashioned lingerie," she explained.

He blinked.

"Why're you wearing it alone in your house?" he asked bluntly. That was the important question.

"How do you know I'm alone?" she retorted. "You barged in here without an invitation."

"Why would you invite me up if there's a guy here?"

"For the Porn, for NCI-SEX on the big screen," she said, deadpan.

He glared at her. She glared back.

He won, though, because she started laughing, clutching at the bannister.

"I don't know why you came over," she laughed, "but  _Saturday Night Live_  is about to start – and I do have whiskey," she said, reading his mind.

He smiled at her a little, relieved – it had felt, for a moment, like they were back where they used to be; in Paris. And it would have continued to feel that way – if she hadn't kept laughing like a lunatic.

"Jen," he growled. "What's so damn funny?"

"That you," she gasped. "That – that you," she choked, grabbing her ribs, "that you know – what a Renoir is," she snorted, "but not a peignoir."

He gave her a baleful look and blinked seriously.

"Keep laughin'," he growled, "and I will rip that Renoir right off."

She burst into fresh peels of laughter, her brows going up – she tried to look stern, but the look on his face was so amusing to her – so full of wounded ego – that she couldn't help teasing him some more.

"No, Agent Gibbs!" she simpered. "Don't breach my perimeters!"


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: this one and the next one are both hella fun, if i do say so my self

 

**Q: Quixotic** _(adjective): extravagantly chivalrous or romantic; visionary, impractical, or impracticable;_ **syn:** _fanciful, fantastic_

Gibbs was mildly annoyed that he'd been tasked with carting the drunk director home from one of Abby's parties. He didn't know why she'd decided to go – hell, he didn't know why  _he_  decided to go – but Jenny had seriously underestimated how much  _spike_  was in Abby's spiked punch, and since Gibbs knew she'd never want her security agents to see her like this, and he didn't trust DiNozzo to take her home, he had assured Abby the director was going to find herself tucked safely into bed at the brownstone, and escorted her out.

The mild annoyance was coming from Jen's incessant chattering – he'd forgotten she was so chatty when she was drunk – and back in the day, it hadn't bothered him a lick, usually because he'd been on the bottle, too, and there was always the promise of getting laid – but now she was his boss, and she'd left him years ago, and he wasn't going to take advantage of her when they didn't have a pre-established relationship, so her constant stream of conversation concerning the colour of the NCIS walls was not very cute.

"Orange?  _Orange_?" she said indignantly – for about the tenth time. "It's personally – per-son-al-ly – offensive to me, Jethro."

"Got somethin' against orange?" he asked obligingly – he knew that if he didn't pretend he was listening or interesting, she'd get belligerent – at least, she always used to.

He'd never forget the time Ducky, coming back late from an assignment, had walked in to find a younger, drunker Jenny yelling at Gibbs because he'd ignored her assessment of mint chocolate chip ice cream versus butter pecan.

"Orange is atrocious. It wants to be red  _so_  badly. But it's not. It's just not."

"Tell me about it," Gibbs said, deadpan.

"I  _am_  telling you," she said seriously. "I am – listen: orange is  _personally_  offensive to me."

"You don't say."

She nodded importantly.

"It thinks it's red."

"So, did some mean brat in high school call you a ginger or somethin'?" Gibbs asked. "That why you got a vendetta against orange?"

"Ginger is actually white," Jenny told him.

"You're rockin' my world here, Director," Gibbs said flatly, feigning disbelief.

She sighed and rested her head against the window.

"I hate all the orange."

"You're the damn director," he said, "repaint the walls!"

She flung out her hand.

"They won't let me!" she whined.

He arched his brows. He was joking – had she really been trying to repaint the walls for the time she'd been here? Why wouldn't they let her do something like that? He smirked a little.

"What colour would you paint 'em, Jen?"

"I don't know," she sighed forlornly. "I love colours."

Gibbs pulled into her small drive and parked neatly next to her little car. He killed the engine and got out to get her door for her – of course, independent as ever, she was already falling out the door when he got over there. He shut it for her.

"Do you have my house key?" she asked.

"Yup."

She nodded as if that made all the sense in the world, and allowed him to place his hand on her lower back as they walked up to the house.

"Maybe that colour," she said, pointing at some violets planted near her front porch. "Purple is the colour of royalty."

"Navy Yard isn't your kingdom, Jen," he said skeptically.

"That's what you think, Mister," she retorted, poking him sharply in the chest while he tried to reach around her to get her door open.

"Okay, Jen," he conceded, letting them in. He shut the door behind him, and tucked his hands into his pockets, standing there while she looked around and blinked a few times, catching her bearings. She held out her hand, palm up, towards the stairs.

"Am I supposed to walk up these?" she demanded.

He resisted the urge to laugh at her.

"I'm sure as hell not carryin' you," he told her succinctly.

She trudged into the kitchen.

"Well, that's really mean," she said, slamming something down on the counter.

He smiled blandly and followed her, watching her to make sure she wasn't so out of it she was going to injure herself. He cleared his throat as she examined a mug.

"Jen, what are you doing?" he asked warily. "Think it's time for you to hit the sack."

"I think you're supposed to be calling me ma'am," she said loftily, pointing at him suspiciously.

"Ma'am," he said, slightly sarcastic, "I think it's time for you to hit the sack."

"I'm not going anywhere near your sack."

He glared at her, scandalized. She put the mug down, furrowed her brow, and then pushed her hair back.

"What was in that punch?" she asked herself. "Hmm," she murmured, touching her lips. "I feel like I'm my first year of college."

"People can't be years, Jen," Gibbs said seriously.

She closed her eyes.

"I really want to go to bed," she said dully.

He nodded, and held out his hand – he'd walk her up the damn stairs if they seemed that intimidating to her. She grasped his fingers and looked at them as if they were painfully interesting to her, saying nothing as he firmly took her to the master bedroom. She looked around, strolling towards her bathroom.

"Why aren't the walls at NCIS blue?" she asked. "It's the goddamn  _Navy_."

He heard a crash and, gritting his teeth and shaking his head a little, he went to see what she'd done. She came out of the bathroom and shut the door, putting her finger to her lips.

"Don't worry about it, Jethro," she said secretively.

"Go to bed, Jenny, Jesus Christ."

"What do you think about blue?"

He shrugged.

"There's a bunch of different kinds of blue," he said frankly. "Some are just as bright as that orange you got such a grudge against."

She sat – collapsed, fell, down onto her bed and sat there, looking at him intently.

"Your eyes," she said thoughtfully. "I could paint the walls the colour of your eyes."

He put his hands into his pockets warily.

"Jenny," he reprimanded quietly.

"I like your eyes."

"Time for bed, Director," he said gruffly, nodding his head at the pillows.

She turned away from him, crawling towards the pillows, and she pushed her hair back, hardly bothering to change out of her clothes, and gave him an intent look, pursing her lips. She snapped her fingers clumsily.

"What's that word," she said, her lashes fluttering a few times. "You know – "

"There's a lot of words," he said neutrally.

"The one – that's like the book, with the guy… _Don Quixote_ ," she murmured thoughtfully. She drew her knee up to her chest. "It's all about romance, and rash behavior and imprac—impracticality and impulsive –"

"The book or the word?" Gibbs asked.

"Quixotic," she said triumphantly, looking at him. "Quixotic."

He smirked at her.

"Think you mean  _exotic_ , Jen," he teased.

"No," she said faintly. "You were never exotic to me."

He considered her for a moment.

"You lost me," he admitted dryly. Where was she going with this – what was the point.

She lurched forward and opened her bedside table drawer. She pulled out a small, beaten up red book, and tossed it at him lazily. He reached out to glance at it, and was unsurprised – Webster's Dictionary, an older version; well-used.

"Don't tell me you read the dictionary," he muttered.

"You should keep that," she said – she yawned through the sentence, but it still sounded prim and proper. "You need one."

He flipped through it, looking for  _Q_. He'd never heard the word; he swore she'd been drunkenly slurring, but there it was, down on the page, nestled between other strange words beginning with the same letters. He read the definition, and thought back over what she'd been saying, still a little baffled.

"What're you tryin' to say, Jen? You callin' me this?" he asked.

She shook her head thoughtfully.

"Your eyes," she said sleepily, "make me think of that word. Paris makes me think of that word."

Holding the dictionary, he stared at her for a little bit. He placed it gently back on the bed with her, and didn't say anything – he didn't know how to interpret that, and he didn't know if she'd still feel that way if she was sober, but it was time for him to go.

"I hate the orange walls, Jethro," she said sleepily.

"I know, Jen," he told her solemnly, standing there while she dropped off to sleep.

He put his hands back in his pockets after a moment, waiting just long enough so that she'd probably be really asleep, and then he quietly went to check on whatever she'd broken in the bathroom – he didn't want her cutting herself in the morning if it was glass, and he needed a minute to think about why she thought they'd been – quixotic.


	18. R

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: :D of course i had to do something about red!

**R: Russet** _(adjective/noun)_ _: a reddish-brown colour; red and brown in colour;_ **syn:** _copper, titian_

When Jenny Shepard opened the front door of her brownstone on Saturday afternoon and did not appear under any sort of serious duress, Gibbs narrowed his eyes and gave her a dubious look, glancing around pointedly. She widened the door and beckoned him in.

"You said emergency," he growled at her.

"Emergency doesn't always mean you need your gun," she said diplomatically.

" _What's_  the matter,  _Director_?" he asked.

She folded her arms warily, and tilted her head to the side.

"It's kind of a personal favor," she said warily, sighing. "It's not work related – but I'm really in a bind."

He blinked. He said nothing. She beckoned to him, and headed up her stairs. After a moment of rude glaring at her – and a quick look at her backside, he followed her up the stairs, into her bedroom…and then on into the bathroom. She turned to him, and winced a little.

"I had an appointment at the hair salon today," she began, "but my girl's baby got sick and she had to cancel, and no one else can take me – "

"Sounding less and less like an  _emergency_ , Jen."

"—and I have a function tonight, a highly visible function, cameras and newspapers – I could be interviewed with the Joint Chiefs and my roots are showing – "

"You've  _got_  to be kidding me, Jen," he growled.

"—so my last ditch resort was buying boxed temporary hair colour but I have a lot of hair and I haven't done it myself since I was in college and – "

"You better not be about to ask me to – "

"—I need you to colour it for me."

He stared at her in abject disbelief, his blue eyes narrowing. Did she think he was some kind of slave boy, at her beck and call?

"You and I need to talk about what you call an emergency," he growled sharply.

"Jethro, I had to get you over here somehow."

"Nine-eleven was an emergency, Jen," he snapped.

"Would you have come if I told you the truth?"

"You coulda tricked my by saying you were stuck in a tree naked."

" _Why_  would I be  _stuck_  in a tree  _naked_?"

He shrugged, deadpan.

"Better than putting your damn hair on the same level as a terrorist attack."

"Your concern for social sensitivity is touching," she told him dryly.

She leaned on the bathroom counter and sighed.

"Jethro, I can't go to my function like this," she said seriously.

"Why the hell did you call me?" He griped. "Call Ziva! She's a girl."

Jenny held up two fingers.

"One – do you think Ziva has ever dyed her hair in her life?" she asked, ticking down one finger. She didn't give him time to answer before moving on. "You've had three – four – three," she stumbled, unsure if he was still keeping up the charade, and then plowed on: "wives – you have to have at least helped with this before."

He glared at her defiantly, and she glared right back, intently searching his eyes, his face, for confirmation, for a break in the unreadable armor. Finally, though he didn't break eye contact, he dipped his head slightly.

"Once," he admitted stiffly.

She arched one eyebrow.

"Only once?" she prompted.

He grit his teeth.

"Five times," he amended. His second wife – Rebecca – had dyed her hair as often as she'd changed her clothes, and usually it was either help, or watch her destroy whatever area she was doing it in.

Jenny looked impressed, but instead of teasing him, she turned to her sink, picked up a box, and grabbed a pair of latex gloves.

"Good," she said silkily. "Then you're a pro. Now, my hair is shorter than it was when I was in college, and I can do most of it – I just need you to make sure the back is covered -

"Jenny," he interrupted. She paused, blinking at him innocently, and he gave her a pained look. "Can't you call Abby?" he tried, suggesting yet another women.

"Abby and I have a friendly working relationship, Jethro, but we're not friends," Jenny said frankly. "Your hands have at least run through my hair a thousand times before," she added, matter-of-fact.

He smirked a little.

"A thousand?"

"I'm counting the times you've done it in your dreams."

He glared at her. She put a hand on her hip and handed him the box.

"You going to help me or not, partner?"

He studied the posed model, the vibrant red advertised on the small little paper box, and he looked at her hair, shrugging.

"I know your hair's not red from a box," he said suggestively. "Why do you need this?"

She sighed.

"My hair  _is_  naturally red," she said. "But I'm older, and it's duller, and I keep a shade on it to brighten it, so when it fades, you can tell."

His eyes ran over her hair, parted neatly and down, ready to be gunked up with the chemical crap in this box. She chewed on her lip, a little irritated.

"If someone takes a photo of me and it makes papers, I don't want my roots showing up," she said tensely, insecurity flashing in her eyes.

He looked down at the box again; the woman on it had green eyes, and was fake laughing at something. He turned it over, read a bit of it, and then turned it back, his eyes flicking to the top corner.

"What the hell's russet?" he asked.

She raised her eyes to the ceiling.

"It's a red, Jethro, it's obviously a red – I'm not going platinum for the night," she drawled.

He tried to imagine her as a blonde, and made a face; he couldn't see it, and he didn't want to.

"Why isn't it just called red?" he asked.

She looked exasperated.

"My hair isn't just red, you Neanderthal, it's a very deep sort of auburn-crimson—I like that russet because it makes it look like the colour of autumn apples or leaves," she explained.

He gave a massive roll of his eyes.

"You gonna tell me my hair's not grey next?" he provoked.

She looked at him narrowly.

"As a matter of fact, I don't think the term grey describes it," she said seriously.

He gave her an expectantly look.

"Silver is very accurate," she conceded.

He stepped forward, opening the box, and pouring out the contents with a critical look – he was still debating agreeing to this or not. He glanced at her, then pointedly gave her a slow look up and down and grinned a little.

"Need any other hair touched up?"

She slapped him in the arm, and shook her head.

"I swear – I'm going to regret this, aren't it?"

He simply nodded, and then handed her the stuff to get the colouring ready. He watched her deftly pour and mix and shake and flick her eyes over the instructions, just for quick clarification.

"Never got the silver fox thing," he said, out of the blue.

She peered at him, amused, and shrugged.

"Not like the animal, per se," she said. "Silver hair, plus the slang term for a charming male," she explained.

He considered her for a moment, and then grinned.

"Foxes are usually russet," he said, snorting at the word derisively. "Makes you my perfect mate."

She laughed, and gathered her hair back, throwing it over her shoulders for him.

"That was the worst line I've ever heard – but I'll take it; you can take me to the function tonight."

She saw the look on his face, and she laughed again, knowing damn well that he'd consider that a punishment more than a victory.


	19. S

**S: Soporific:** _(adjective/noun): tending to induce drowsiness or sleep/a drug or agent that induces sleep;_ **syn:** _sedative, opiate, tranquilizer_

 

_"That Senator you publicly humiliated tried to bribe me to fire you with this bottle of vintage. I thought it would spite him best if we shared it."_

That's how they'd come to be like this – she'd stood at the top of his basement stairs, holding the neck of an incredibly expensive bottle of deep red wine over the rail and dangling it gently as she peered at him in the dim darkness.

He'd hesitated, because they'd been crossing the line a lot these days when it came to their personal relationship, and she'd said she wanted to stop, she wanted to just remove the wanna-be romantic element from it all and stop letting them hurt each other with uncertainties and fear of commitment – and since he knew where they usually ended up was alcohol was in the mix, he'd hesitated.

But she knew he had a carefully hidden but very fierce weakness for fine red wine, and he'd relented, eventually trudging up the stairs and starting a fire.

One glass led to another, and then she was all over him – not in a particularly sexual way, but in a manner that made him feel wary, because he wasn't sure what she wanted tonight, and she didn't seem to be able to get comfortable.

She tipped her glass to her lips again and leaned her head back, the back of her neck pressed into the place where his shoulder met his chest.

"How do you sleep on this?" she mumbled. "Every night. Doesn't your back hurt?"

He shrugged.

"It can't be good for you," she went on lazily. "Neck, shoulders – twenty minutes with a masseuse and you'd remember what it feels like when you're not used to this soreness."

She was making guesses about how he felt, and he shrugged again.

"Don't sleep much," he said.

She made a noise of contempt, but didn't say anything else. He rested his arm on the back of the couch, his wine glass clasped loosely in his hand. His fingers lingered somewhere near the crown of her head, hovering, debating whether or not he wanted to run his fingers through her hair. He watched her take another few sips of wine, and went for it.

She tilted her head back into his touch, and shifted closer to him, pushing his leg off the couch so she had more room to curl up. He rolled his eyes.

"You want somewhere to nest, Jen?" he teased.

"Yeah, this little burrow with all its blankets and lumpy pillows," she murmured back.

He smiled, and ran his hand down to her shoulder, rubbing it soothingly, in a massage that slowly got more suggestive, more adventurous. She shifted her shoulder, and shrugged the neck of her sweater down a little, nodding her head slightly.

"You hungry?" he asked.

She smiled a little.

"You going to share your cut of steak with me?" she asked quietly, teasing him.

He shrugged, his hand moving under her shirt.

"You're worthy," he decided seriously.

She laughed under her breath, holding out her now empty glass. He poured her another, almost emptying the bottle, and she put it to her lips, taking a slow breath in to savor the aroma. She was comfortable where she was.

Gibbs shifted forward and nudged her head forward, pressing his lips to the back of her neck. She closed her eyes, her wine glass held a little too loosely in her hand, and shivered slightly. The fire was warm, but he was pushing her sweater more off her shoulder.

"Don't rip it," she mumbled, her speech slightly slurred.

"Jen, are you drunk?" he asked, pausing.

"No," she answered firmly. She yawned, and tilted her head back, reaching back to grab his free hand. She nodded –  _keep going_. She rested her eyes closed more heavily, the red wine buzzing in her head pleasantly, like a lullaby.

He put his lips back to her neck, and then reached around to touch her cheek and tilted her head up, moving to kiss her.

She jumped a little, startled, and her eyes flew open. She dropped her wine glass and it spilled, landing on the floor with a thud, and he jumped, pushing her up and away a little, alarmed.

She covered her mouth, blinking hazily, and pushed her hair back. The wine seeped into the blanket he kept on the couch, and he moved back, brushing his hand over the mess. He looked up at her, scandalized, not because she'd stained this old couch, but because –

"You fell asleep?" he asked – he was so offended, his voice was almost high pitched. "Were you  _asleep_?" he demanded.

She flushed bright red because – well, technically, yes, she'd fallen asleep, and when he moved to kiss her, he scared her – the way you were always scared when someone jolted you out of a nice, shallow little nap.

He continued to give her an outraged glare, and she reached out, grasping his knee. She hit a pressure point, and his leg jerked; he glared at her harder.

"It's not your fault," she soothed, wincing.

She bit her lip – that must have  _really_  dealt one to his ego.

"Jen," he growled. "'M not that boring."

"It's not you, Jethro, it's  _not_!" she insisted. "Wine is a soporific – it makes  _me_  soporific!" she told him, attempting to vindicate herself.

She'd given him permission, she hadn't meant to fall asleep – sure, he startled her, but it wasn't like she'd have suddenly accused him of wickedly trying to take advantage when she innocently needed a place to stay! She'd have rallied for the important part –

"It's a –  _what_?" he snapped, still glaring. He leaned over and grabbed a pillow, yanking the case off of it and throwing it down over the wet wine. "It turns you into a  _what_?"

"Soporific," she said, flushing again, apologetic. "It's something that makes you sleepy, or it's when you feel sleepy and drowsy – "

"Which is it, Jen, noun or adjective?" he asked sarcastically.

She gave him a dry look.

"Both," she retorted. "Now you want to get prissy about parts of speech?"

"I am not," he growled, " _prissy_." He threw the wine-soaked pillow case at her and she caught it, biting back a smile – and then biting back a yawn.

He appeared particularly annoyed with the yawn.

"I can't help it," she confessed, nodding at the spilled wine. "Wine always puts me right to sleep."

"You never slept through me in Paris!" he pointed out edgily – he sure as hell would remember if after a glass or two at dinner she'd suddenly dozed off in the middle of him putting the moves on her.

She shrugged and moved her hand up his thigh a little, tilting her head innocently.

"Well, Jethro, in Paris it never took you longer than two glasses to start taking my clothes off."

He took that as a specific challenge, and lunged forward, wrinkling up the blanket so the wet parts mushed up against her legs. She leapt back, shaking her head.

"Floor," she murmured. "Floor – I don't want to get an infection from some misplaced wine – "

"Shoulda thought about that,  _Sleeping Beauty_ ," he mumbled huskily, narrowing his eyes. "Floor's bad for my back," he added smugly, going back to her earlier concerns.

She tilted her head back when he put his lips to her throat and opened her eyes wide, laughing out loud – the wine was still buzzing cozily in her head, but at least he got it sparking through her blood instead of dreamily rocking.


	20. T

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one's for you, hillary !

**Troglodyte** _(noun): a person who lived in a cave/a person who is deliberately ignorant or old-fashioned;_ **syn:** caveman, neanderthal

Abby Sciuto was  _considerably_  overwhelmed by the chaos that had descended on her lab – she'd been minding her own business, doing her job with her machines and her smarts, when Gibbs had stormed in as if he were on an extremely hot case – like, forest fire hot, or Mercury hot – and shoved a sticky-note in her face, and demanded –

" _What does this mean?"_

She'd barely had time to blink and try to see the blurry word before he asked again, shaking the note. She snatched it from him, leaping off of her cushioned stool, and glanced at him, amused.

"Troglodyte?" she read, flouncing to her computer. "I love troglodytes – we all should, really, they're out ancestors – "

"Ancestors?" growled Gibbs. "It doesn't have somethin' to do with computers?"

Abby, a pro at deciphering Gibbs' hopelessly incompetent ability to understand technology, immediately understood his confusion.

"It sounds like megabyte or gigabyte, but it's got nothing to do with that – do we have a case about prehistoric humans?" Abby asked.

" _What_  are you talking about?" Gibbs demanded, right as the Director came flying into the lab.

"Abby – I need you to wipe my e-mail server; I made a small mistake – "

Gibbs rounded on the director before Abby could answer.

"Did you, Jen?" he asked loudly. "Getting a little carried away with your attitude?"

Abby's mouth fell open. She widened her eyes.

Jenny delicately placed her hand on Gibbs's shoulder, and then very un-delicately shoved him out of her way. She came up next to Abby, did some quick work with the keyboard, and pulled up her system.

"I, ah, accidentally sent an e-mail to – an Agent – "

"ME," growled Gibbs indignantly.

"—from my government account," Jenny went on, talking over him, "and I – well, I have some short-cuts set up, and," she flushed, and sighed. "I CC'd the whole agency. Remove it."

Abby tried not to burst out laughing. She turned, pushing Jenny's hands gently aside, and clicked her tongue.

"Yikes, Director, this is something I expect from Gibbs, but you," she said, ignoring Gibbs' grunt of annoyance.

He stormed back up to her other side and slapped the sticky note with the word troglodyte onto her computer, blocking her view.

"Don't do her any favors until she tells me what she means by this," he threatened childishly.

"Why don't you just Google words you don't know instead of making yourself look like an ass," Jenny hissed.

Abby leaned back quietly, typing away.

"Only an  _ass_  uses words like this, Jen."

"I am your  _boss_ , Agent Gibbs, and if you think – "

"Fine, you're a  _superior_  ass –"

"Is this really happening?" Abby muttered to herself, almost gleeful – she wondered if she could wire the feed to the screen in the bullpen for the team's viewing pleasure – but Gibbs and Jenny would probably notice that pretty quickly. Autopsy, then? Ducky might find it amusing –

"Did you clear it, Abby?" Jenny asked.

"Well, it's simple – I can't really control who viewed it, but I can sweep a complete clear of all your e-mails today so they disappear," Abby said thoughtfully, "it will only take a second, except," she frowned, glancing through her technical readings. "Uh oh."

"Uh oh?" Jenny asked, glaring. "Uh oh  _what_?"

"Gibbs replied to it," Abby said. "I'll have to clear his stuff, too – er, I might just have to clear people's caches for today," she mumbled. "His reply went agency-wide, too – "

Jenny glared at him furiously.

"You  _idiot_!"

Abby narrowed her eyes.

"If I mass-clear things, it's going to look suspicious to everyone, though," she mused. "If I claim you were hacked, there will be a major investigation into your e-mail practices," she added. "Huh. Maybe just chalk it up to a mistake?" she asked.

Jenny looked at her, white-faced. Abby blinked.

"Wait, what did the e-mail say?" she asked, amused.

She clicked over to her account – she hadn't checked all morning, she'd been in the ballistics lab. She pulled up her e-mails – ignored a request for her to attend training on something she'd already done, ignored two e-mails from McGee and one with the subject in all capitols from DiNozzo that said GUESS WHAT THE DIRECTOR JUST DID – and then she found it:

_Jethro,_

_If you don't stop leaving your empty coffee cups in my office after hours, I'll stop leaving the door unlocked when I leave. The dregs leak through the bottom and stain everything, and if you're not careful I'll take one of Vance's leftover toothpicks and stab you with it in the same place I kicked you in Paris after your little joke with the mouse. You are not a troglodyte; you are a grown ass man. Clean up after yourself._

_-Jen_

This time, Abby did burst out laughing.

"Holy – oh my god, you CC'd the whole agency? Why were you even – how did you – " Abby burst into laughter again, and quickly pulled up DiNozzo's e-mail:

_ABBY, ZIVA, TIM, JIMMY –_

_CAMPIRE IN THE EVIDENCE LOCKER. SO MANY QUESTIONS. WHAT MOUSE?! WHERE DID SHE KICK HIM? BLACK LUNG, BRING SNACKS._

_-TONY._

"Oh, man, you guys have so many problems," Abby trilled easily, clicking her tongue.

Jenny, flushed, glared at her. Abby gave her a slightly sympathetic look.

"Well, Director!" she tried. "This is tame – "

"TAME?!"

"Honestly, when you came down here all freaked out I thought we were talking nude photos – "

Jenny looked absolutely scandalized, and Gibbs slapped his hand on the sticky note insistently.

"Don't worry about that, Abs, those are all old-fashioned polaroids," he deadpanned.

Abby made a point of not daring to actually look at the Director. Instead she just shot Gibbs a quick warning look of disbelief, and cleared her throat.

"The two of your clearly need to get laid," she said, "probably by each other," she added under her breath, and then cleared her throat.

"Okay, ugh, everyone seems to be ignoring this – DiNozzo was the only one stupid enough to e-mail anyone about it – "

"What was your response?" Jenny interrupted, glaring at Gibbs. "Abby, you said he responded."

Abby clicked around for a minute, and then pulled it up. She tilted her head curiously.

"It's literally just two semicolons and five L's – Gibbs, have you ever used a keyboard in your life?"

"Abs," he growled, shoving his finger at the sticky note. "Just tell me what this means."

"For God's sake, Jethro, use your context clues!" shouted Jenny. " _Troglodyte_ : i.e., a caveman, a Neanderthal, a prehistoric idiot with a ridiculous obsession with Jamaican blend and no social life outside of work!"

"Is that the  _urban_  dictionary definition?" Abby quipped.

Jenny turned to her sharply.

"How big of a faux pas is this?" she asked, wincing.

Abby shrugged.

"It's not like you spilled classified information or were using your personal e-mail for government business that should be transparent," she said. "It's a personal e-mail on an official account – the worst thing about is the threat," Abby giggled, "because if Gibbs ends up dead by toothpick, you'll probably go to prison."

"Gladly," Jenny said darkly.

"Also it's a little insulting to Agent Vance, I guess," Abby added, shrugging. "Best to just leave the e-mail and put it down in the files Flintstone-Gate!"

Jenny and Gibbs looked at her blankly.

"You know, Fred Flintstone,  _caveman_ , the common practice of adding "gate" to the end of government scandals because of …Nixon…" Abby trailed off, and smiled sweetly. "You guys should probably go try to find a way to face your employees," she advised, smirking.

Gibbs grabbed his sticky note violently and stormed out, followed almost immediately by the director's rapidly clicking heels. Abby heard them still sniping at each other even at the elevator –

" _Troglodyte_ , Jen? Troglodyte?!"

"Fred Flintstone  _would_  function better in the modern world than you, Jethro!"

Abby waited until the hall quieted, and then dashed to the stairs to make her way to the evidence locker campfire – Tony would  _pee_  himself when she repeated the epic catfight Gibbs and the Director had just had in the lab.


	21. U

**Urbane:** _(adjective): reflecting elegance, sohistication, etc. especially in expression; having the polish and suavity regarded as a characteristic of social life in major cities;_ **syn:** _cosmopolitan, suave, elegant_

Gibbs sat at his desk in the late hours of the day, only his desk lamp on to aid him in his work. He squinted narrowly at the cramped and messy handwriting in a naval officer's psychological files, trying to make sense of the case. He ignored soft footsteps as they approached, and didn't look up when a cloud of perfume stopped beside his desk.

"Go home, Jethro," she said.

He just shook his head a little.

"Got clear this guy, Jen."

"You've been trying to decipher that file all day," she sighed.

He looked up at her coolly.

"This guy pulled four Marines and two enemy combatants out of a burning building and lost his legs in the process," he said shortly. "He's not gettin' his medal of honor revoked on my watch."

She nodded, leaning against his desk. She debated staying to keep him company, like she used to in the old days. She looked around, her eyes lingering on the things pinned up behind his desk – he'd never been one to decorate, not like everyone else, but since he'd come back from Mexico, there was one single faded, wrinkled photo tacked up on his corkboard.

She looked at it a moment, and then something white and frilly caught her eye under one of his files, and she picked it up. He looked up, glaring at her mildly, and then went back to reading while her eyes flicked over the calligraphy.

Her brow furrowed, confused.

"This is a wedding invitation," she stated.

He grunted.

"To  _your_  wedding," she prompted, waiting.

He grunted.

"To your wedding in nineteen ninety- _three_."

He grunted.

She glared at him, and then kicked his chair gently, giving him a look. She shook the invitation – why was it so immaculate, hardly aged, and why was it here? He sat back with an annoyed sigh and lifted up his file, handing her three more copies of the thing and a thin slip of paper with swooping handwriting on it.

Jenny read the note – it was from Diane, in perfect cursive, and it said something about her finding them while cleaning out old things.

"Why would she think you'd want these?" Jenny asked, amused.

Gibbs gave her a deadpan look.

"She's evil."

Jenny laughed, fanning herself with them. She read over them again, and then opened one, examining the details. She snorted, and then put them down neatly on the desk. Gibbs gestured to them vaguely and leaned back forward to read his case.

"They've got a typo," he grunted, a little vindictively. "I never pointed it out to her, back then."

Jenny picked up the envelope, and critically examined everything.

"I don't see a typo," she said. "I highly doubt Diane is the type of woman to miss a typo on her wedding invitations."

"Inside," Gibbs said. "That whole bunch of  _crap_  about what kind of  _atmosphere_  the wedding was," he snorted. "Urban."

Jenny looked over the part he mentioned, and shook her head.

"There's not a typo."

He grabbed the invitation, and pointed to the word  _urbane_.

"This is wrong, Madam Director," he said, gloating a little.

"No, it's not."

"Urban doesn't have an 'e'."

"Ur _bane_ , Jethro," she corrected, stressing the last syllable. "Ur _bane_." She looked at him a moment, smirking, and then read off the small paragraph. "' _An intimate, urbane affair to take place at one o'clock on the second Saturday of the eighth month_  – " she didn't finish.

Gibbs stared at her blankly, and then shrugged.

"So," he drawled. "What's ur _bane_  mean?" he asked, imitating her tone with a roll of his eyes.

"It means she's a snob," Jenny said dryly. She folded her arms. "Urbane means, sort of, very elite and high-class, the sort of expensive lifestyle you'd expect in the Upper East Side of New York City," she defined. She sniffed. "She could have just said sophisticated."

Gibbs clamped his mouth shut, resisting the dangerous urge to point out that Jenny ragging on Diane for using fancier words than necessary was severely hypocritical – but he didn't really care if Jenny ragged on Diane, and he also didn't want to get his ass kicked tonight, so he didn't say anything.

Jenny snorted.

"I can't believe you had an  _urbane_  wedding," she teased lightly. "I bet it was just  _divine,_ Jethro, just positively  _aristocratic_ ," she went on, clearly amusing herself: "To think, you were a veritable blue blooded  _dandy_ , a real gallant knight – "

Gibbs shook his head, ignoring her, letting her go on with her mocking, thinking quietly to himself that he clearly had a type when it came to well-spoken women.


	22. V

**Varicella:** _(noun): one of eight herpes viruses known to infect humans and vertebrates;_ **syn:** _chicken pox_

Gibbs was still pretending to sleep like a normal human being when his phone rang. He opened his eyes, relieved for the excuse to get up and stop engaging in this charade. He answered it with his customary grunt and was greeted by a resigned sigh.

"Jen?"

"Good morning, Jethro," she said pleasantly.

_Too_  pleasantly.

"What did you do?" he asked, immediately suspicious.

"I didn't  _do_  anything – "

"What do you  _need_?"

She fell silent, and made no protest, and he nodded to himself;  _busted her._

"I need you to play director today."

Gibbs considered throwing himself off of his couch and into the coffee table, shattering it, and hopefully impaling himself on some chip of wood or shard of glass or stray nail so he could say he was indisposed and couldn't do it.

Instead, he groaned.

"No," he said.

"Right now it's a request, but I can turn it into an order."

"Jesus, Jen, you don't want me in charge," he whined. "You always tear me a new one when you get back."

" _Stop telling ridiculous organizations I will speak at their events!"_

He grinned a little, but quickly focused back on the issue.

"C'mon, ask someone else."

"If you'd really like me to put McGee or DiNozzo in charge of you –"

"No, I'm talkin' Ziva, or Abby."

"Ah, yes, a foreign national or a scientist. Sounds excellent."

"I'm incompetent," Gibbs tried.

"No, you're not," she retorted flatly. "Unorthodox, perhaps, but you're capable as anyone," she complimented.

"You playin' hooky or something?" Gibbs groused.

"I'm sick," she said vaguely.

"Don't sound sick."

"I have a fever and I'm miserable and extremely horrifying to look at."

"Doubt that."

"Really, Jethro, the red spots are covered in white splotchy cream."

He furrowed his brow, gritting his teeth.

"What the hell's wrong with you?" he asked.

"I have Varicella."

He blinked, and rubbed his jaw.

"You need me to call the CDC?" he quipped dryly.

"Ha," she laughed, mirthless. "It's not that big of a deal, but Noemi is freaking out – "

"Well, yeah, Jen, I've never heard of the damn thing!"

He could practically hear Jenny roll her eyes.

"Varicella is chicken pox," she said.

He narrowed his eyes. Chicken pox? What was she, six years old? He snorted and cleared his throat.

"Better keep callin' it that other thing, Director, it sounds less like  _bullshit_."

"Adults can get Varicella," she said nastily. "I didn't have it as a child, and the vaccination came out in ninety-five – I was at FLETC!"

Just to bug her, Gibbs made a noise like he didn't believe her. He hesitated a moment, and then sighed heavily, closing his eyes and rubbing his brow.

"Yeah, I got your back," he agreed grudgingly, wincing – he hated playing Director; he hated it with every fiber of his being. Cynthia nagged the hell out of him and he always had to sit there and watch DiNozzo's absurd way of being team leader.

She let out a breath of relief.

"You know you got to do an oatmeal bath and put mitts on your hands not to scratch," he said gruffly, and abruptly.

She paused.

"I'm sure Noemi is drawing one now – I am a grown woman; I think I can manage to  _not_  scratch without oven mitts," she said, amused. "Why are you such a pro at Varicella remedies?" she asked curiously.

He was quiet; he thought it was obvious. She was the one who'd gotten defensive when he insinuated only kids got it.

"Why do you think, Jen?" he retorted heavily.

"Oh," was her quiet response. "Thanks, Jethro," she said, a moment later.

He grunted, brushing it off. He rubbed his jaw, and then cleared his throat.

"Hey, Jen?"

"Yes?" she drawled, about to hang up.

"Just call it the damn chicken pox."


	23. W

**Wuthering:** _(adjective): blowing strongly with a roaring sound;_ **syn:** _strong, wild._

 

 

There was no finesse involved in the way Gibbs took stuff from the top of the closet and chucked it into an open, waiting box at his feet. Papers rustled, awards and books thudded, as he threw everything she'd pointed to haphazardly into a brown receptacle.

"Jethro," she growled, gritting her teeth.

"You said you didn't care about this stuff!"

"I still have to sort through it; you don't have to break everything."

"Nothin's broken," he protested, rummaging around and picking up an object – one of the awards, and an old textbook. He held them up. "Perfect condition," he said, deadpan. "Thus, uh, fifth grade spelling bee trophy, and, ah, tenth grade algebra book with your name on it," he said, glancing down , "with a little heart over the 'I' in Jennifer."

He snorted.

"You were annoying in school, weren't you?" he provoked.

She threw two books at him.

"Put these in the garbage box," she snapped, flushing. She pushed her hair back. "And what were you in school, Jethro?"

He gave her a serious look.

"Cool."

"Okay," she said, in a very, very patronizing, sweet voice.

Somehow, she highly doubted Gibbs was Danny Zuko in high school. She shook her head, and he bent to pick up the books she'd thrown him – he let out a noise of annoyance; not only were they the same book, they were joining two other copies of the same damn book in the trash pile.

"Jesus, Jen," he griped, holding them up. "How many copies of this damn novel you got?"

He half-expected her to snap back something prim, but instead she turned and put her hands on her hips, looking exasperated.

"Honestly," she sighed. "I don't know." She bit her lip and shook her head. "I don't remember it being this bad."

"What's ' _it'_?" he asked, suspicious.

She pushed her hair back, and sat on the edge of her bed, picking up one she'd put there – it was one of her annotated copies, one she was keeping. She smoothed her hand over the cover, and eyed it for a moment before pulling it against her chest and holding it there thoughtfully.

"I went through this phase where I bought every single copy of that book that I saw, just to have an excuse to read it again," she admitted sheepishly. "I liked all the different covers, and I wanted to read the different forewords – "

"That's insane, Jen," Gibbs said, deadpan.

"I know," she agreed, with solemn eyes. "Shockingly, the story ended the same way every time." She pulled the book from her chest and ran her hand over the cover again, fingers lingering over the raised lettering on this leather copy.

"You expect it to change?" Gibbs grunted.

She met his eyes, and shrugged.

"Maybe I hoped it would," she said intently.

She set the one in her lap aside, and leaned back on the bed, looking at him critically for a moment. She smirked.

"That book is responsible for you," she said smartly.

"Me?" He gestured to himself, scoffing.

What the hell did her book obsession have to do with him? He had seen her with this novel a fair number of times in Paris, but he'd never thought to remark on it; the Gibbs of the nineties hadn't noticed much unless it involved a case or his own solitary suffering.

She nodded, pressing her hand into the bed, scrunching up her knuckles a little.

"For a very long – misguided time – I thought the story was so  _romantic_ ," she snorted. "I just couldn't get enough – started when I was young, obviously, and then at some point I think it warped my mind in that I thought I needed to experience all kinds of dramatic heartache and nightmare for love to be real."

He flicked through the book thoughtfully – he'd never read it; he didn't even know what it was about, and the title didn't even make sense. He threw the books down in the garbage box and gave her a cool look, considering her silently.

"You accusin' me of something?" he grunted warily.

"No," she said mildly. She shrugged. "It's not like you were easy to be with, Jethro," she said frankly.

He stood there staring at her, unsure where she was going; what she was trying to say.

"I knew that, though," she said. "Hell, I knew it before I ever got involved with you. But I always thought it was romantic that way." She shrugged again – she'd been very wrong, then, and she would still be wrong today; there was nothing sexy about dysfunction.

"What do you think now?" he asked abruptly, a strange glint of curiosity in his eye.

She tilted her head, thinking about it carefully – they were in a good place now, professionally and personally; good enough for her to ask for his help doing some spring cleaning while simultaneously knowing she could trust him not to cross a line, so long as she didn't erase it first.

She took a deep breath.

"I think," she started vaguely, and then steeled herself. "I think I wonder if I would have felt, or if I would feel, the same way about you if you hadn't been so tortured. If you weren't so tortured."

He gave her an unreadable look, and she shrugged lightly; she didn't know how else to put it, because sometimes she did wonder if there was something about Jethro that made her want to heal him, or prove she could be the one who 'fixed' him, and she often did contemplate whether or not she'd have fallen for him if he was just your average masculine federal agent with average issues, like William Decker, or Stan Burley.

He slipped his hands in his pockets.

"What's it mean?" he asked gruffly, jerking his head at the book beside her. " _Wuthering_?" he clarified, when her brows knit.

Jenny put her hand on  _Wuthering Heights_  and chewed on her lip a moment. She smirked.

"Windy – really loud, strong, persistent wind," she told him.

He just arched an eyebrow, and didn't say anything else for the longest time.

"Should I read it?" he asked finally, the corner of his lips turning up. "See what you're comparing me to?"

Jenny laughed, and shook her head, red tinting her cheeks.

"No, Jethro," she advised succinctly. "I don't think you're anything like Heathcliff. He was deliberate in his cruelty. You aren't."

She closed her mouth tightly; she hadn't meant to put it that way, but it was out there now, and she waited to see how he would react.

He didn't. He just turned to the box, crouched down, and picked up a copy of the book – probably to keep, and read anyway.


	24. X

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: so, X words were hard -- as i said before, the trick with this story is picking a word that is obscure enough for Gibbs to be fuzzy on, but not so completely absurd that no one would use it and Jenny sounds totally stupid -- with X, pretty much the only option was 'Xenophobia' or 'X-ray' -- and obviously Gibbs knows what an x-ray is, and Xenophobia ... I was going with that, until I found out the history behind this one and, well ... this one's for you, Kimmy Schmidt.

**Xanthippe:** _(noun/adjective): Socrates' wife; ill-tempered wife or shrewish woman;_ **syn:** _shrew, scolding woman_

 

Gibbs was unsure why the Director had decided to join the team pow-wow, except that she must have nothing better to do. That was incredibly hard to believe, since she was in charge of an entire federal agency, but he tended to get in trouble when he questioned her methods, he was keeping his mouth shut and sticking to glaring at her in extreme annoyance as she bounced ideas around with the team – with Ziva, mostly Ziva.

"Why are you two being so difficult about this?" griped DiNozzo – and for once, Gibbs agreed with him; he had no idea why they'd been discussing Ziva's undercover name for almost an hour. It wasn't like she was going on a deep cover assignment in China. It was just a localized embezzlement sting.

"Names are very important," Ziva said seriously.

"And this is the fun part," the director added.

" _Fun_?" Gibbs quoted, growling at her. "This is work, Jen – "

She cleared her throat loudly.

"Director," he corrected coolly.

"Ziva and I spent hours devising clever names in Eastern Europe," Jenny said primly, twirling in the chair she'd stolen from an empty desk. "Making them blend in, but stick out just a little so we'd remember them, mean nothing at all but somehow have an inside joke meaning – "

Ziva burst out laughing.

"Remember Xanthippe?" she asked.

"Whatah who-ey?" Tony asked, annoyed.

Gibbs wasn't sure if Tony was annoyed because the director and Ziva were such good pals, or because he wasn't the center attention, or because he was just hungry – but again, for once Gibbs was on Tony's side here: this slumber party was getting irritating.

"Ah, yes, Xanthippe," sighed Jenny smoothly. "The Greek shipping magnate."

"That blonde wig was exotic on you," Ziva remarked.

"Blonde wig?" Gibbs asked, leaning forward.

"Oh, look, now he's interested," Jenny mused, jerking her thumb at him. She shot him a look. "Blue contacts, too."

"We thought she was going to look Scandinavian, but with her tan she looked Macedonian enough. And I had this neat, prim, straight brunette wig that matched my eyes. Very Cleopatra," Ziva said smugly.

"Cleopatra was Egyptian," McGee said slowly, brow furrowing. "She was bla—"

"She was a Ptolemy; she was a  _Greek_ ," Ziva corrected sharply. "Most Egyptians were of African and Semitic descent, though you'd never know it from American movies – but Cleopatra was a very inbred but very obvious Greek – "

"Ziva," Jenny broke in, amused.

Ziva fumed quietly for a moment. Jenny knew of her extreme passion for the history of the famed Egyptian queen.

Tony opened his mouth, and Ziva pointed at him.

"Do not say it if it is stupid," she warned.

Tony clamped his mouth shut. Ziva turned to Jenny, resuming their conversation.

"Those Turks never did seem totally convinced," she mused.

"In retrospect,  _Xanthippe_  may not have been the subtlest choice," Jenny snorted.

"But very Greek," Ziva rationalized, "and very believably, if a woman had wanted to re-invent herself as formidable – "

"—and anyway, we got the weapons—"

"—thanks to that boy you knew in college – "

Gibbs smacked his hands on his desk and stood up, glaring at the both of them.

"What the hell are we talking about?" he demanded.

" _You_  are not talking about anything," Ziva said – Ziva was a lot less respectful of his authority when her  _best friend forever_  the director was around. She gestured between herself and the redhead. "We are."

Gibbs clenched his fist.

"How the hell does someone you knew in college help foil a Turkish weapons scam?" he asked – unfortunately, now he was interested, and he was very annoyed at himself for being sucked in.

"It wasn't a Turkish weapons scam, we were stealing a shipment from Al-Qaeda," Jenny said, as if that were obvious.

"And who was – Xanadu?"

Jenny laughed.

"I was, I was undercover – "

"And you made up a ridiculous name like Xenon?"

_"Xanthippe,"_  Ziva corrected seriously. "It is not made up."

"It sounds fake."

"Well, it was fake," Jenny said frankly, "since my birth certificate does not in fact say Xanthippe Shepard," she joked dryly. "The name, though, is not made up. Not by me, at least."

"Where the hell –"

Jenny cringed.

"I'm fully aware that there will be mockery for this, but – when I started college, I was a philosophy major, Greek and Roman, specifically, with a focus in political philosophy."

Gibbs expressed zero shock. That explained more than she could possibly imagine.

"And a TA I was dating, at one point, called me a xanthippe, and I realized right then I couldn't live the rest of my life with people who talked like that on average, so I switched majors, and broke up with him – "

"So it's not a name, it's a word?" Tony asked, confused.

"It is both," Ziva said. "Though I had only heard the name, until Jenny told me that story, when she chose it."

"Not buying it," Gibbs griped.

Jenny stood up and strolled over, knocking him aside and doing some quick typing on his computer.

"I'll prove it to you, you buffoon," she muttered under her breath, so no one heard but him.

"Careful,  _Probie_ ," he growled right back.

"Look, it's a Wikipedia article," she said.

" _That_  sounds made up, too," Gibbs muttered, glaring at the screen.

"Now you think Wikipedia is a conspiracy?"

"Wikipedia is real, Boss," Tony said solemnly.

Jenny pointed.

"Xanthippe was Socrates' wife," the Director read to him, and then added: "And somehow,  _probably_  because of Shakespeare, her name became a term used in literature to refer to a shrewish or ill-tempered woman."

Gibbs pretended to read the page dutifully. All he really noted was that the word did not seem to be spelled the way it sounded. He turned to Jenny seriously, his face unreadable.

"Hard to believe someone called you that," he deadpanned.

"Do you want me to fire you in front of your team?" she retorted simply.

"Hey," Tony said, tilting his head curiously. "What was Ziva's undercover name in all of this? What was she, your right hand woman?"

"Indentured servant," Ziva and Jenny answered together. Ziva cocked an eyebrow. "I was Arsinoë."

DiNozzo stared at her, brow furrowed. He looked at Gibbs.

"I think the whole thing is made up," he said dryly, looking for some camaraderie.

Gibbs shrugged, sitting back down at his computer.

"Don't look at me," he drawled. "Take it up with  _Xanthippe_  over here."

The Director shot him a glare, and he ignored it, instead smirking at his computer, and silently making a mental note to literally  _never_  stop making fun of her about this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the historical debate over Cleopatra and her ethnicity is legendary. i couldn't resist (buuuuut she was greeeeeeeeek obvs)


	25. Y

**Yen:** _(noun): a strong desire or propensity;_ **syn:** _craving, longing, hunger_

 

She had, somehow, ended up as a stand-in field agent on a Saturday night. Cramped in the back of a federal car, holed up on a stakeout in West Virginia, she wondered why the hell Gibbs always came knocking at her door, and she tried to pretend she wasn't loving the old familiar rush of federally legalized spying.

"Need the binoculars?" he asked, leaning back the passenger seat.

Gibbs was keeping an eye on everything in front of the car and out the side front windows; Jenny had the rear and the rear side windows.

"My eyesight is young and fine," she retorted primly, unscrewing the top of a water bottle.

" _Young_ ," he snorted, dropping the binocs into his lap.

"Younger than  _you_ ," she shot back.

"Older than you used to be," he retorted.

She rolled her eyes.

"Astounding, how that  _time_  thing works," she drawled. "Pass your coffee?"

"No sugar in it."

"My tastes have matured," she teased.

He handed her back the travel mug, and gave her a wry look. She took a sip, shivered and made a face at the black bitterness, and kept the mug, receiving a frown from him, and a glare. She smiled at him sweetly.

"Finders, keepers," she crooned.

"'M havin' Paris flashbacks," he grumbled.

"As long as you keep your head and Paris, and not Marseilles," she sang, taking another prim sip.

He gave her a slightly amused look.

"Yeah, because  _we_  kept it in Marseilles," he deadpanned, rolling his eyes a little.

She held her hand up.

"I just don't want you getting any funny ideas."

"Well, Director, it's only the first night of the stakeout," he said seriously.

He turned, facing the back of the car, his back up against the dashboard. It looked uncomfortable, but she said nothing, leaning against the seats and propping her feet up on the reclined passenger seat. Her bare toes rested near his knee.

"You're not watchin'," he pointed out, affecting a stormy glare – like he used to give her when he was her boss, and not the other way around.

"Neither are you," she retorted demurely, shrugging.

They considered each other for a moment, and then she grinned, tilting her head back.

"Ahh, the nostalgia," she sighed. "Do you pick me up for these things to torture me, Jethro?"

"Didn't know you missed me so much, Jen," he countered smoothly.

She gave him a small, wry smile.

"Stakeouts were always my favorite," she remembered.

He tilted his head, and she arched a brow at him.

"I did have a rather memorable initiation into them, in Marseilles."

He nodded, giving her an incredibly serious look.

"Yeah, I do that with all my Probies," he told her. "You're not special."

Jenny feigned surprise, and interest.

"I'll have to seek out DiNozzo and compare notes," she deadpanned. She ran her hand back through her hair and leaned forward, passing him back the coffee and reaching for her water bottle again. "There's nothing going on here, Jethro, let's go home."

"Your place or mine?"

She raised her eyes to the ceiling and shook her head, exasperated, but slightly amused.

"You never cease to push the limits."

"I toe the line in front of the rest of the team!"

"Barely," she snorted coolly.

She lifted her index finger to her lips and bit down on the nail thoughtfully, gesturing around the car. It was a nice night, so having the engine dead and the windows up didn't make it miserable hot or freezing, but just bearable. She could hear cicadas through the windows; they should be disappearing soon.

"I wonder if we missed anything, on that stakeout in Marseilles," she mused suddenly.

"Little late to worry about that now," Gibbs snorted.

She gave him a solemn look.

"I certainly hope no Lebanese weapons dealers ran free because we were otherwise occupied."

She smiled at him, and her hand fell from her mouth.

"Come on, let's hit the road," she coaxed. "This stakeout, back-in-the-day atmosphere is giving me a yen for really cheap, greasy, bad Chinese food."

He considered her for a moment, and then arched his eyebrow.

"Not sure what good  _yen's_  gonna do you here, Jen, even if it is a Chinese restaurant."

She blinked, confused, and then closed her eyes, biting her lip and smiling. She opened one eye, tilted her head to the side, and leaned forward. He gave her a wary look.

"I want to laugh, but I see where the confusion came in," she said dryly, "as yen is, in fact an Asian currency. It's not Chinese, though."

"What the hell else did you mean?"

"Well, why would I be talking about Japanese currency all of a sudden?"

"'Cause you wanted Chinese food?" he retorted blithely.

"Japanese and Chinese are not the same thing!"

He shrugged. He knew that damn well.

" _Yen_  means somethin' else? Is it Hebrew?"

She shook her head.

"It's English."

He shifted and leaned forward, glaring at her, inching his nose closer to hers. He waited, and she cleared her throat, meeting his eyes intently.

"It means a desire for," she said quietly. "Intense longing."

He consider her a moment, in the silence, wondering if she was just talking about cheap takeout.

"Really," he muttered, more of a statement than a question. "Well, Jen," he drawled huskily. "Why didn't you just say so?"

She tilted her head, ears perking up at the timbre of his voice. She flicked her eyes to his mouth suggestively, and smiled.

" _Yen_  better encapsulates what I was really feeling," she explained quietly. She smiled wryly, and glanced at him through her lashes. "I know you don't like them, Jethro," she said intently, "but words are very powerful."

He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully, a muscle in his jaw jumping. He nodded his head once, and his eyes flickered unreadably.

"'Specially when you write 'em in a letter," he told her gruffly.

She compressed her lips, and tilted her head down – it was just a reminder that any  _yen_  for the old days with them would always be just that: things would never be how they used to be, in Marseilles.


	26. Z

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: and, in a grand finale, we see Gibbs finally get the upper hand.

**Zabernism:** _(noun): the misuse of military power;_ **syn:** _aggression, bullying_

In a completely normal turn of events, Gibbs was keeping the whole team late on a holiday weekend – despite the fact that other federal agencies had received their complimentary hour of leave to start the holiday early.

Neither Ziva, Tony, nor McGee dared complain or grumble, though; they were wishing for their weekend and their time off, but to an extent they were just as bothered as Gibbs by the details of their current case – and they'd been hounding the details of it for what seemed like an eternity, but was really only a couple of days.

Desperate, certain members of the team had turned to unorthodox suggestions –

"I think we should watch the movie," DiNozzo said loudly, for the tenth time.

Gibbs gave him a ruthless glare. DiNozzo held his hands up.

"It's the same damn case!"

"What movie?" Ziva asked again – every time this came up, DiNozzo and McGee got into an argument, or Gibbs shut it down, and no one had ever gotten a word in to tell her what the hell –

" _A Few Good Men_."

Interrupting the group, the Director strolled in, stopping near Gibbs' desk with a short look around. Her gaze landed n Ziva.

"It's a film about the legality of Military authority and disobedience regarding it," she explained simply. She glanced at Gibbs. "SecNav wants an update on the Jack Nicholson case," she said, a little wryly.

Gibbs looked at her blankly. DiNozzo snorted.

"Jethro," Jenny said, rolling her eyes, "I know you know how Jack Nicholson is, and I know you've seen  _A Few Good Men,"_ she told him. "Cut the crap. What's going on with this issue?"

For days, the team had been working to get to the bottom of a female Marine's unexpected and violent death at Pax River, three months after she'd come out boot camp at the bottom of her class. Three fellow Marines – male – had been arrested for her death, all of whom were top performers and medal winners, and all were refusing to acknowledge that they'd touched her, despite genetic evidence to the contrary.

The resemblance to the iconic movie was scary, though its nastiness was compounded by the fact that it was three male Marines on a female Marine.

"Did that Gunny order a Code Red?" Jenny asked.

Gibbs gave her an extremely annoyed look.

"There's no such thing as a Code Red," he growled.

Jenny gave him a comparably annoyed look.

"Those Marines are protecting someone. There's a redacted e-mail ordering something 'be done' about the woman, and those boys – "

"These aren't boys and girls, Director, they're men and women," Gibbs griped testily.

"The men aren't talking," Ziva said pointedly. "The Gunny says he told everyone to stay off the woman's case until it was time to administratively discharge her."

"And yet," Jenny said, raising her voice, "we have a dead eighteen-year-old who had spent a week crying herself to sleep," she snapped.

McGee leaned forward.

"I'm trying to track where this e-mail came from, but all computers were wiped," he said grimly. "It's just convenient that they were wiped the same morning as part of a routine clearing of caches."

"Almost as if the Gunny knew he'd never get busted," Jenny said, glaring at Gibbs.

"Why're you lookin' at me?" he barked.

"You were a Gunny," she said coolly. "If I find out you're looking the other way because of some misplaced military loyalty – "

"Ah, Jesus, Jenny," Gibbs growled, shaking his head. He rubbed his jaw. "'M tryin' to figure out how to nail the bastard to the wall – "

"This makes no sense," Ziva said abruptly. "Why bother with nailing the Gunny? We have the men who did it. We nail them."

"They were following orders, Zeee-vah," DiNozzo said, pointing at her sharply. "If there is a sadistic Marine ordering men to rape their counterparts to shape them up, we need to nip it."

"They could disobey the order!" Ziva snapped.

Gibbs gave her a mildly surprised look, and shook his head slightly. Tony clicked his teeth.

"See, that's why you need to see the movie," he drawled. "Could you disobey an order in the Israeli military?" Without stopping, Tony continued: "These guys are trained to question no authority or risk getting someone killed – "

"I will not listen to you justify their actions with the same excuses the Nazis gave," Ziva said coldly.

For once, Gibbs stepped into their bickering in a serious way.

"Easy," he said gruffly, raising his hand and lowering it slowly. "He's not excusin' them, Ziver, he's pointin' out why we've got to find a way to nail the Gunny," he said.

Ziva looked at him silently, and Gibbs sat back, rubbing his jaw again.

"You do think it was a Code Red," Jenny said, studying Gibbs.

He raised his eyes to the ceiling.

"Code Reds don't – " he started.

"Exist, yes, I've heard," Jenny interrupted sarcastically. "So why did three Marines apparently carry one out – "

"Director, Ma'am," Tony said, clearing his throat. "Er—Gibbs means – 'code red' was literally made up for the movie," he told her. "It, uh, it's not a real thing."

Jenny stared at him. She pursed her lips, slightly sour, and kept silent, processing that – well, so much for her research into the issue; she hadn't realized it was actually a myth just trussed up by the film. She turned to Gibbs.

"I want to know what happened, Jethro," she said dangerously. "I don't want this Gunny getting let off the hook while the nation wages a silent war against military rape and the bullshit excuses people use to carry out – extrajudicial punishment," she snapped, with a scowl.

Gibbs stood up.

"Do I need to get a JAG lawyer in here to solve it like the movie did?" Jenny provoked.

Gibbs gave her a scowl, and shook his head. She took his arm, in front of everyone.

"You think they were ordered to act, Gibbs?" she asked intently.

"Jen," he growled, shaking her off. "What the hell do you think I'm doin' down here, knitting mittens? 'M tryin' to figure out if they acted on their own or if they can pass the buck – "

Ziva shared a look with McGee and DiNozzo –  _'knitting mittens?'_  mouthed DiNozzo, while McGee suppressed a smirk.

"Even if they did act on their own, they can't pass the buck!" Jenny interrupted angrily. "You can – Ziva can tell you that in dire situations, it is possible to disobey a military order – you can't stand there and tell me that you think those guys are off the hook as long as they were following –

"No, I can't tell you that, Jen," he interrupted loudly, his eyes flashing. "I don't give a damn if the President of the United States gave the goddamn order, you don't assault a fellow Marine; you don't attack the weak," he growled. "I joined the Marines for honor, and I'll be damned if I let this bastard get away with staining the uniform – it's Zabernism, Director, and if you'd give me a chance to prove it before you jump down my throat, I'll give you an indictment."

Tony hastily looked away from the scene. Ziva watched it smartly; McGee looked at the ceiling – it was too often that Gibbs attacked the Director in front of witnesses; they usually bickered behind closed doors.

She stared at him consternation for a moment, and then she shook her head.

"What?" she asked, taken aback.

"You want him to repeat all that?" Ziva laughed, amused. "Gibbs has never said that much about himself since – " Ziva broke off, feigning confusion.

"His last wedding vow," Tony snorted, hastily pretending it was a cough.

"No," Jenny said, distracted. "No – it's – what did you  _call_  it?" she asked, eyes on Gibbs.

He looked at her for a minute, confused himself, and then a curious expression spread over his face, and he straightened a little, his head tilted. She didn't like the way his eyes suddenly glittered mischievously.

"What are you asking,  _Director_?" he asked.

"Z-Zabernism?" she repeated, glancing at Ziva. Ziva shrugged and shook her head—she didn't know what he meant. Jenny shook her head, pursing her lips.

"You tellin' me  _you_  don't know what a word means?" Gibbs gloated.

Jenny grit her teeth.

"Did you  _make the word up_?" she demanded primly.

Gibbs gave her a calmly superior look, and shook his head very slowly.

"I, uh, know what it is," McGee piped up.

"'Course you do, McGee," Gibbs said smoothly, not taking his eyes off Jenny. "Your old man was a hard ass Navy Admiral."

Jenny glanced over at the geeky agent, and then turned a menacing glare back on Gibbs. She was about to open her mouth, when he grabbed some files off his desk, gave her a pointed look, and pushed his chair in.

"Abuse of military authority," he defined gruffly, stepping close and giving her a smug, triumphant look.

She reared back slightly, narrowing her eyes, and before he left her standing there modified, he met her green eyes and drawled:

"Get a dictionary, Jen."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again, kind of similar to how I ended "Idioms!" - in that one, Ziva got the idiom right in the last chapter; in this one, I found the perfect word that Gibbs might know and Jenny could be clueless on. i hope you've enjoyed; see you next time!
> 
> -alexandra

**Author's Note:**

> ! let the fun begin !
> 
> -alexandra  
> story #1 (for AO3)


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